Grahame Morris, the Labour MP for Easington, has tabled a parliamentary motion urging the government to impose legal limits on how often footballers head the ball in training, citing evidence that repeated head impacts raise the risk of neurodegenerative disease.
The Early Day Motion (EDM), submitted on Tuesday, calls the protection of players’ brain health a “significant public health and player welfare issue” and urges ministers to take “a more active role in prevention, education and player protection.”
Morris said the motion was intended to raise awareness of the growing body of evidence linking repeated head impacts, particularly heading a football, to an increased risk of neurodegenerative disease. Researchers have found that footballers are three and a half times more likely to die from such a disease than the general population.
The motion backs a national petition submitted in September by the charity Head Safe Football and asks the government to take five steps:
- Impose legal limits on repetitive heading in football training.
- Establish a cross-departmental task force involving medical experts, player representatives, campaign groups and football authorities to develop “enforceable heading safeguards.”
- Recognize chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a public health concern.
- Create a national action plan to protect players’ brain health.
- Improve education and awareness of the risks of heading, including in schools and through the physical education national curriculum.
EDMs allow MPs to express an opinion on an issue and canvass support, but they carry no guarantee of a parliamentary debate no matter how many members sign on.
Guidance ‘not enough’
Football already has restrictions in place. The Football Association has phased out deliberate heading in grassroots matches for children aged 11 and under. Its guidance recommends no more than 10 headers a week in training at amateur level. In the English professional game, clubs have been advised to limit players to 10 “high force” headers a week in training. Scotland has gone further, banning heading in training on the day before and the day after matches in the professional game.
Campaigners argue that voluntary guidance leaves too much to chance. Dr Judith Gates, founder of Head Safe Football, said coaches and parents often do not know about the guidance or the ban, or do not understand why it exists.
“There needs to be greater clarity and greater specific restrictions in order to protect players of today and tomorrow,” she said.
Dr Gates’s husband, Bill, a former Middlesbrough player, died with CTE, a degenerative brain disease associated with repeated head impacts. She accepts that enforcing a legal limit on heading would be challenging.
Prime minister backs compensation scheme
The calls for stronger protection came as Prime Minister Andy Burnham urged English football to formally recognize the game’s dementia crisis and establish an “industrial injuries” compensation scheme for former players.
Burnham said he had spoken to families affected by dementia and brain injury and had heard what they had 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,” he said.
His intervention follows inquests into the deaths of former England World Cup winner Nobby Stiles and Scotland defender Gordon McQueen, both of which found that repetitive heading had contributed to their deaths.
The Professional Footballers’ Association and the Premier League set up a brain health fund that has provided about £1 million annually since 2023. Campaigners say the money is not enough to meet the costs of care. The Football Association has not contributed financially to the fund, but said it continues to invest in research and has introduced guidance across the professional and grassroots games.
“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,” an FA spokesperson said.
The EDM is not binding, and its path through Parliament depends on whether it attracts enough support to be scheduled for debate. The petition, the prime minister’s remarks and the campaigners’ demands have put the governing bodies under renewed pressure to explain how current heading limits are communicated and enforced, while the FA maintains that the science on long-term brain health is still developing.