MP urges legal limits on heading in football training

Grahame Morris, the Labour MP for Easington, submitted an Early Day Motion on Tuesday calling on the government to impose legal limits on repetitive heading in football training and to develop enforceable safeguards to protect players' brain health. The move follows research cited in the motion that found footballers are three and a half times more likely to die from a neurodegenerative disease than the general population.

The EDM describes the need to protect players' brain health as a "significant public health and player welfare issue" and supports a national petition submitted in September by the charity Head Safe Football. Morris told BBC Sport: "The aim of this EDM is to raise awareness of the growing body of evidence linking repeated head impacts, particularly from heading a football, to an increased risk of neurodegenerative disease," and he added that "The motion encourages the government 'to take a more active role in prevention, education and player protection'."

The motion sets out a series of actions for the government, including imposing legal limits on repetitive heading in training and establishing a cross-departmental task-force of medical experts, players' representatives, campaign groups and football authorities to develop "enforceable heading safeguards". It also calls for recognising chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a public health concern, creating a national action plan to protect players' brain health and improving education and awareness of heading risks in schools and through the PE national curriculum.

Current measures in the game are already varied: the Football Association has phased out deliberate heading in grassroots matches for children aged 11 and under and recommends no more than 10 headers per week in amateur training. At professional level in England, clubs have been advised to limit players to 10 "high force" headers a week in training, while Scotland bans heading in training on the day before and after matches in the professional game.

Campaigners argue those voluntary rules do not go far enough. Dr Judith Gates, founder of Head Safe Football, said: "What we are finding is that coaches and parents don't know of the guidance, or the ban. Or they do not know why it exists," and added: "There needs to be greater clarity and greater specific restrictions in order to protect players of today and tomorrow." Dr Gates, whose husband the former Middlesbrough player Bill died with CTE, acknowledged that enforcing a legal limit would be challenging.

The calls for stronger protection coincided with Prime Minister Andy Burnham urging, in an interview with the Telegraph, that English football formally recognise the game's dementia crisis and establish an "industrial injuries" compensation scheme for former players. In a statement to BBC Sport he said: "I've spoken to families affected by dementia and brain injury and heard what they have been through. "Their determination to get this issue taken seriously has been extraordinary, and they should never have had to fight so hard to be heard." The article notes inquests into the deaths of Nobby Stiles and Gordon McQueen found repetitive heading had contributed to their deaths.

The Professional Footballers' Association and the Premier League have established a brain health fund that has provided about £1m annually since 2023, a level campaigners say is insufficient to meet care costs. The Football Association has not financially contributed to the fund but said it continued to invest in research and had introduced guidance across professional and grassroots football; an FA spokesperson said: "While the link between heading in football and long-term brain health remains the subject of ongoing scientific and medical research, we have consistently been at the forefront of efforts to help improve the safety of our game."

The EDM has been tabled to gather parliamentary support and press the government to act, but EDMs are a mechanism for MPs to express a view and canvass support and there is no guarantee the motion will be debated in Parliament.