Rugby’s ticking timebomb: is sport linked to dementia?
It’s the issue that convulsed American football for two decades or more, and it now terrifies rugby, its European cousin.
To what extent can repeated concussions, or brain injuries, increase the risk of dementia, and other brain diseases? And are the authorities in charge of combative ‘collision’ sports like the NFL, and rugby, in denial about the risks?
The rugby authorities argue research has really only just begun. The trouble is, the science that does exist is increasingly alarming.
Earlier this year neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart discovered what’s claimed to be the first case of early onset dementia caused by playing rugby.
Read more: Sporting stars’ deaths raise concussion fears
Add to that the $765m the NFL recently paid out to settle a lawsuit with some 4,500 former players claiming irreparable damage from clashes during their days on the pitch, plus those players’ claims the NFL had covered up evidence the sport was getting more and more dangerous.
The PR implications for similar legal cases in rugby are one thing – the impact on playing numbers is another.
Rugby’s case is and always has been that it is safe, healthy, and enjoyed by millions.
People hanging up their boots for fear they’ll develop dementia would be, on balance, a bad thing – but try telling that to a parent worried their kid will end up a vegetable.
All of these are familiar arguments to Roger Goodell, commissioner (boss, to you and I) of the NFL.
American football is on a business and charm offensive to conquer the world – first stop London, with the now twice and soon to be thrice yearly Wembley games, plus talk of a London franchise within the not too distant future.
And then there’s the often mooted possibility of the Superbowl eventually coming to Blighty. But none of that will materialise if fears continue to grow about safety. Safety – No1 on Mr Goodell’s agenda.
“What we’re taking out of our game is the danger,” he says. And it’s not just about better helmets. In fact, new helmets might be part of the problem.
The better the headgear, the more aggressive a player can be. The implications of technological innovation over time are clear to see. So how to remove this danger then?
The NFL has introduced new concussion guidelines: independent concussion experts who have the power to remove players from the field, plus mandatory extended rest periods following a suspected concussion.
It has a bigger challenge though – to re-educate a sport that over generations has come to glorify the big hit.
Head tackling
A sport that’s even seen players offering “bounties” to one another to render the opposition incapable of playing on. Remember James Caan in Rollerball? Indeed…
The debate, and it is no different for rugby, is how the NFL moves forward, and how it retains the qualities that broadcasters pay billions for – while addressing the increasingly worrying scientific evidence.
It’s about effecting a culture change. And all that hype around the NFL coming to Europe brings with it something else. The law of unintended consequences.
For rugby is now getting more exposure in the US. And rugby, Goodell says, “is teaching us how to tackle, because their technique is so good”.
The thing the sports share is a belief they fulfill a greater social good.
“NFL players live longer than people who don’t play sport,” says Mr Goodell.
A big claim, and no doubt he has stats to back it up.
But causality and statistics have never been the best of bedfellows. Clearly, NFL doesn’t make you live longer. But then neither can one say NFL causes dementia.
But repeated concussions? The science appears to be headed one way and one way only. And the onus will soon be on collision sports to prove they are safe. Not the other way round – for the doubters to prove that they are not.
Roger Goodell was talking at a Sports Journalists’ Association event in London ahead of the San Fransisco 49ers v the Jacksonville Jaguars, 5pm on Sunday 27th October. Live on Channel 4.
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