After news of another couple of players being diagnosed with dementia this week, I wonder how long it will take for heading to be totally banned from the game.  It has been suggested that the old heavy lace up footballs were the cause of a lot of it but even the new lighter balls must cause a lot of damage to the brain after years of training and matches.  Seems odd that we could see a game with no heading whatsoever but it could potentially make for better entertainment if the ball was kept on the deck.  Got to question how many more players will be diagnosed with these awful conditions before FIFA actually do something about it.  This is much more serious than the tackle from behind ever was which is now outlawed. 

I wonder if they might just put a ban on heading during training. I think the NFL does something similar where they couldn't do much to make the sport completely safe so they just have a lot of restrictions on training.

Sticking my neck out here but being diagnosed with dementia in your 70s & 80s seems to be getting more prevalent in society as a whole. 
In my social circles it seems to be affecting women more than men, the reasons for which can only be speculated on.

Does anyone know of a case where a footballer or indeed any other contact sport player has been diagnosed with dementia say in their 50s? Boxing & UFC spring to mind as the most likely.
 

12 hours ago, tom_widdows said:

Sticking my neck out here but being diagnosed with dementia in your 70s & 80s seems to be getting more prevalent in society as a whole. 
In my social circles it seems to be affecting women more than men, the reasons for which can only be speculated on.

Does anyone know of a case where a footballer or indeed any other contact sport player has been diagnosed with dementia say in their 50s? Boxing & UFC spring to mind as the most likely.
 

This was the example I remember, Jeff Astle:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/nov/02/football-and-dementia-players-who-died-with-or-are-living-with-the-disease-england-1966

Not that it makes that much of a difference but football's now are way lighter than the old style football's of the past. I remember as a kid we used to play headers and volley's for hours during the summer holidays. And that was with the old style football. You would go up for a header and end up feeling like you had just been skelpit with a brick. It was worse when they got wet.