There is “no safe limit” for heading a football, the high court heard, as lawyers acting for former players who suffered permanent brain injuries sought to advance their case against the game’s authorities.
Claimants in the case argue that the authorities should have made players aware of the risks they were taking by heading a ball as far back as the 60s, claiming that information on the danger of repeated blows to the head was in the public domain.
Speaking on behalf of the 23 former professional players, and the families of 10 deceased players who comprise the joint action, Susan Rodway KC told a pre-trial hearing in London on Thursday that “it is the defendants’ duty to outline what they did know” on the issue of injuries.
“The claimant position is that repeated heading and clashes and associated injuries have a cumulative effect,” she said. “We are saying there is no safe number of times a player can head the ball. Do the defendants have experts that say there is a quantum under which safety is maintained?
“If that is the case, we say that the case continues but on the basis that the defendants will have exceeded even that safe level, unless they are going to say starkly that heading of the ball is safe, however much you do it.”
The Football Association, English Football League and FA of Wales are joint defendants in the case and Michael Kent KC, acting on behalf of the EFL, said this definition meant the court was now hearing a “completely different” case from one looking at individuals who had experienced concussion on the pitch.
Analysing the risk of repeated heading meant that “we are dealing with allegations related to something which would not at the time have produced any identifiable problem,” he said. “It’s a cumulative but invisible injury over a period, completely different from a case based on a huge number of references to concussions and their management.”
Rodway said that a further 90 individuals have agreed to join the legal action and that “we remain of the view that this could go as high as 150”. The claimants include thefamily of former England midfielder and 1966 World Cup winner, Nobby Stiles, who had dementia and died in 2020. A postmortem found he was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive brain condition caused by repeated blows to the head.
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Both sides also challenged each other over perceived delays in bringing the case to trial, with Rodway asking for deadlines to be moved forward and defendants demanding extra information. “It has been five years since the case started, and three years since generic elements of claim were submitted,” Rodway told the court. “I very much hope that the court can take on board that enough is enough and we need to progress.”
Martin Porter KC, representing the FA, said: “I know her solicitor will tell anyone who listens that the FA is dragging its feet but we have had to go to strenuous efforts in order to discover what these cases are truly about.”
Judge Amanda Stevens ruled that the parties should reconvene for a further pre-trial hearing on 29 July.