Soccer Faces Questions over Dangers of Heading Ball
Soccer-mad children growing up in the UK in the 1990s may remember their coaches laughing: "Every time you head the ball, you lose a brain cell."
Children would then be told to do heading drills, jokingly counting each brain cell they'd lost.
But that joke isn't funny anymore. The more research that's done, the more that experts find: heading a soccer ball again and again could be causing real, long-term damage.
The French World Cup-winning player Rafael Varane said in April that he feels he has damaged his body after years of heading.
Varane was saying something that others have been shouting for years.
In 2002, a well-known English soccer player named Jeff Astle died aged 59. When he was alive, doctors said he had Alzheimer's disease. But years after his death, doctors found he had died from a brain condition caused by repeated blows to the head — a condition more often seen in boxers.
Astle played at a time when soccer balls were made of tough leather, which could double in weight when wet. And while modern balls don't do that, their design lets them fly farther and faster — so they may be doing just as much damage.
And recent studies suggest the effects aren't only felt in the long-term.
In 2023, researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University found that heading a ball may immediately affect the brain — and heading just 20 balls may impair cognitive function.
Changes are afoot. In 2021, professionals in the UK were advised to reduce heading in training. And from the end of this summer, children in England aged between 6 and 9 won't be allowed to deliberately head the ball in matches played with the English Football Association.
Earlier this year, a group of ex-soccer players and their families took legal action against soccer's governing bodies in the UK, alleging that players were not protected as they should have been, and that experts knew about the dangers decades ago.
Now, active players like Varane are asking questions, and soccer needs to have answers.
