Football: Dementia’s toll on ex-footballers revealed in Jack Charlton documentary

With football's lawmakers, IFAB, agreeing last week to trial concussion substitutions from January, a new documentary about the life of 1966 World Cup winner Jack Charlton reveals how the former Republic of Ireland manager suffered with dementia in his final years, struggling to remember key moments of his career. The former Leeds United and England defender, who guided Ireland to the World Cup in 1990 and 1994, died in July aged 85 after suffering with the brain disease and lymphoma. In November it was announced that his brother, Manchester United legend Bobby Charlton, is also suffering with dementia, meaning that five of England's 1966 World Cup-winning squad have been diagnosed with the condition, including midfielder Nobby Stiles, who died in October aged 78. A groundbreaking study from the University of Glasgow in 2019 found that former male professional players had a 3.5 times higher rate of death from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's than the general population. Researchers compared the causes of death of 7,676 Scottish men who played football with 23,000 similar men from the general population born between 1900 and 1976. A new decade-long study into how dementia may be affecting recently retired players is also underway at England's University of East Anglia, led by Dr. Michael Grey, who expects preliminary results to appear early in 2021. The study will add 30 former professional footballers to 40 amateurs over the age of 40, and compare them with a 60-strong group who have not played football. This year the English FA introduced a ban on heading for children below 11 years old and a tapered approach through the teen years. While the English Premier League confirmed last week that they will allow teams a maximum of two additional concussion substitutes for players with actual or suspected concussion in matches from next year.