Heading The Ball Should Be Banned

[Johnny Velvet]

Yes, it would pose problems because if defenders can’t head away the ball it would effectively mean any pass or cross into the area is effectively a through ball, which is unfair on defenders.

Yes, it would be very hard for officials to enforce because it’s quite likely that there are going to be a number of high balls in any given game. That would be shit for the officials, who need as much protection and support as possible, but also for the fans who would probably be infuriated at the frequent stoppages as teams adapt to the rule.

Yes, it would deprive us of some great goals and would be penalising players whose best aspect of their game is heading the ball.

Yes, it would rob corner kicks of much of their potential for excitement, particularly in the latter stages of a game as you could only really play it short.

Yes, the ball used in the modern game is probably easier to head than the one used in the Sixties.

But all of that would be worth it if it stops just one player developing dementia. The Charlton Brothers. Jeff Astle. Maurice Setters. Nobby Stiles. Nobody deserves that fate. And football is responsible for that fate.

[Snake Plissken]

Can’t say that I disagree. However, when thinking about how to implement it, I wonder if the game is still the game, or do we have to change fundamental things significantly?

[Foot of Astaire's]

Has the dementia link been confirmed with more recent footballers? I'd, perhaps foolishly, been putting it down to players that would have played with the much heavier balls at the start of their career.

If heading becomes outlawed is it even the same game any more? Just ban football and futsal and 5 a side becomes the main replacement. Surely though MMA, boxing and others of a similar ilk would have to be stopped first?

[jason voorhees]

Quite interesting and one of the worst parts of coaching youth soccer in the 90s when the dangers of concussions were becoming known.

To start with the obvious, we'd need a slightly heavier ball like futsal.

A rule change wouldn't be that hard to implement...a head ball would be a hand ball. No problem.

As far as culture...it would be 1880 again. A reset of the Marvel or DC Universe. Ground Zero.

I still can't get used to goal kicks not travelling outside of the box (like futsal,) or kickoffs going backwards (like futsal,) so may as well implement another rule from futsal.

And quite frankly, no headed goal will ever equal Ruud Gullitt's dreads flying, so there's that.

[Satchmo Distel]

You'd need to have restrictions on the height the ball can travel. No free kicks over the wall.

[My Name Is Ian]

The thing is that it seems particularly prevalent within this generation of players. I mean, I don't recall the players of the forties or fifties having this issue to the same extent, though I guess the media profiles were so much higher by the 1960s.

But it's torn a hole through the 1966 World Cup team, and through that generation of players. I don't know, perhaps it is just because they were higher profile, but it seems so severe amongst that particular generation that I wonder if it could be a product of their time, somehow. The thing about the 1966 World Cup team is that it's a staggeringly high number, which hints at a degree of awful, awful coincidence.

So, banning heading would fundamentally change football, and I can't guarantee that I'd like what it would likely become. But that's on me, really. I'm not a participant. It's not me who might be putting myself at an increased risk of dementia from having to do it. If I don't like it so much I can't watch it, then... tough titty, I suppose.

And one further thing to add is that kicking a ball at the head in order to gain an advantage (much as a player might kick a ball at a defender's arm to claim handball these days) would also need to be outlawed.

I dunno, perhaps only controlled headers (where the ball follows a clear downward movement and not requiring that thrust of the neck that I think they believe to be so damaging) could be permitted for a while, as a move towards it.

I think ultimately that it needs a ton more research, and it needs it done urgently. And that we should act immediately on the results of it, no matter what they are.

(I'm presuming it's still being researched - if the science has already confirmed it, then just get on with banning it.)

[ursus arctos]

I think that it is possible that the general health of players from the 40s and 50s was worse and that many of them either did not live long enough to manifest symptoms or had other significant conditions that masked them.

I do.womder.how much balls of that era and particularly their absorption of water contributed to the problem.

[Hot Pepsi]

It should be banned for kids under 12. Let’s start with that for now.

[caja-dglh]

It should be banned for kids under 12. Let’s start with that for now.

Is it not, effectively? Watching 8-year old's play makes me fascinated when one might work out the art of elevating a ball. It will take years after that for one to work out heading it without falling over.

[Snake Plissken]

I was thinking that - similar to face masks in ice hockey - you ban it at lower age groups first and bring through a generation who are already used to playing under the new rules.

[Sits]

What’s the difference in weight and material from a 60s ball to a contemporary one? There was an old brown leather ball knocking around in the garden when we were kids in the 70s, and it was absolutely nothing like a modern ball.

[My Name Is Ian]

It was the mid to late 70s when manufacturers started moving away from actual leather for match balls. The 1982 World Cup was the last one to feature a leather ball, but they had issues with a new waterproofing design and they kept falling to pieces and having to be replaced.

I was just starting to play at the tail end of this era and the problem was two-fold. Firstly, these leather balls were already way heavier to start with. And secondly, the waterproofing wasn't up to much, so unless the the pitch was dry and there was no rain they'd get heavier throughout a match as the little cracks and chips in the waterproofing let water in. By the middle of the second half on a wet day you'd be using what was effectively a cannonball, and I'm certain it was way worse before then, because I don't think they used to waterproof them much at all.

I stopped playing in 2005 and only relatively recently touched a match ball again - I was staggered at how much lighter they are now than they were fifteen years ago, and those were much lighter than twenty years before that.

[Patrick Thistle]

Futsal is a fun game to watch and I'm surprised no entrepreneurial type has seen the opportunity to grow the sport.

If heading in football is banned then all fighting and high contact sports (rugby, gridiron, ice hockey) should be banned or rendered non-contact. (I'm not averse to that idea btw.)

[EIM]

I've not played 11 a side in 20 odd years, with my regular or semi regular football coming in the form of five or smaller a side. Heading is automatically ruled out in that due to the head height rule, so it's not impossible, is it? I wonder what percentage of the football playing general public play in leagues with this rule?

It would be a completely different sport once everyone got used to it. The death of The Mixer, big men going up for corners, lumpy centre halves, Alan Smith on the back stick, isn't it? Hmm? Jumpers for goalposts.

I dunno, man. From a medical point of view it makes perfect sense, but this is our British birthright. You're basically steaming into our nan's house, smashing her Charles and Di crockery and replacing it with glazed terracotta tapas bowls from Leon.

[EIM]

Futsal is a fun game to watch and I'm surprised no entrepreneurial type has seen the opportunity to grow the sport.

If heading in football is banned then all fighting and high contact sports (rugby, gridiron, ice hockey) should be banned or rendered non-contact. (I'm not averse to that idea btw.)

That Simon Clifford tried in the late 90s. Micah Richards was one of his students, I think.

Futsal is pretty big in South America. I watched a tournament on TV while I was in Buenos Aires, but it doesn't really translate well over here. Though given the inclusion of Street Football similar to Futsal on FIFA video games, maybe they're having a go at making it work again.

Clifford failed, I think, because he was trying to import not just a sport but the whole culture around it from Brazil. That wasn't likely to ever work. I think he also failed because he's a bit of a bellend. Still, he got Socrates to turn our for Garfoth Town, so there's that.

[Jah Womble]

I'm still not sure about this - after all, there seem to have been many more former players unaffected by it. (And these are largely guys who played a far more physical game with a heavier football, etc.) Obviously this isn't to say for one second that there's no correlation here - there is - but banning heading of the (now completely different) ball seems a rather draconian measure.

I haven't really explored it in great depth, but maybe the solution is in the introduction of some kind of lightweight but effective headgear? This could be optional, but players choosing not to wear it would then be liable to onfield penalisation if caught going in for a header. (Dunno, it still feels somewhat drastic to me. There are, after all, other footballing injuries with long-term consequences that seem to go by without comment.)

Agree with the comments about other sports with far greater attached risks - boxing in its various forms, etc.

[Sporting]

Jah pretty much speaks for me.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I can imagine not liking football anything like as much without headering. But so what? A safety-first approach is the right way to go. If someone can come up with something that makes it safe, then it could be worth looking into it - though testing that seems like a tricky thing to do.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Is there solid evidence for the dementia/heading the ball link?

This goes into some details about what the 2019 research found.

https://www.nhs.uk/news/neurology/de...r-footballers/
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/f...-dementia-risk

The cohort study demonstrated that ex-footballers born before 1977 live longer, enjoy better cardiovascular health than the general population but have a 3.5x higher risk of dying of dementia and neurodegenerative disease before the age of 70 (1 in 200 for the general population to 1 in 60 for ex-professional footballers). They didn't prove or attempt to demonstrate a link between heading the ball and dementia.

[Sporting]

Is there research data for other countries? How about (very narrow sample, I know) the !966 German squad?

[Wouter D]

Helmets.

If they work for cyclists, they can work for footballers.

[Duncan Gardner]

As a refinement to the laws on fouls and misconduct, any prolific offender could wear a purple helmet after acting the tool.

Was thinking about this listening yesterday to Carl Frampton's BBC interview. He talked at length about our local boxing club, the Midland. Its future looks bleak after the Lockdowns, now this.

[seand]

Lots of good stuff here, thanks everyone.



Yeah, not a bad idea. They're already widely used in hurling (though not across the board).

Helmets are mandatory at all levels of hurling now. That's a different thing though..... you've sticks flying around, the ball is airborne a lot and the ball is rock hard and travelling an awful lot faster than a soccer ball.. And football differs from cycling etc in terms of helmets.... in cycling the helmet is to prevent catastrophic injury if something goes horribly wrong with the head, in football players are deliberately going around heading the ball.

Looking at it in a completely detached way it does seem a bit mental that people playing a game would deliberately propel an object with their head. I do wonder though if it's such an issue in the modern game with the lighter ball and less agricultural football environment.

And banning altogether for kids I feel is counter-productive if it continues to be legal at senior level. Are you really going to completely ban 6-12 year olds from heading then expect them to learn the technique in their teens having never before applied head to ball? Realistic guidelines limiting heading would be more realistic. When I was involved in coaching kids about 8-10 year old we did a minute or two of short range heading with a light ball each week. That allows a chance to get a feel for the ball and the technique without battering young brains

[imp]

There's a simple way to find out what effect it would have on the game - stage some 11-a-side friendlies at all levels of the game and see how teams adapt without headers, and what sort of spectacle develops. Or, restrict each team to 10 headers per game, after that it's a foul. Sounds a bit gimmicky, but it could be interesting from a tactical viewpoint as you'd have to carefully ration your high balls. Teams renowned for route one football would have to think of some alternatives and variations in style.

Having coached teams under 12, I can say that most of them are not inclined to head the ball anyway. And you shouldn't be coaching kids of that age if you're already encouraging them to lump it long and high on to the big lad's head (or arguably at any age). When I coached a girls' team for seven years in the US, I offered an ongoing reward of $50 for the first player on the team to score a headed goal. It was never claimed, and I didn't expect it to be - High School suburban girls were too bright to be putting their heads in the way of a fast mobile object.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

As stated above, I wouldn't mind seeing data and research comparing old leather ball with today's lighter and more technologically advanced ones - but that may also cause more problems, with thousands of micro-injuries adding up to something more serious and permanent.

Thing is - I love a proper headed goal, with someone steaming in and bursting the net from the penalty spot. It's also what I built my limited footy career on - I was good in the air.