NORMALLY the health benefits of sport are lauded to one and all – indeed e can further expand on the benefits and include the improvement in social skills and academic prowess which is gained through participation in sport.
However for some time now there has been debate surrounding the possible relationship between Alzheimer’s and football and this is clearly a cause for worry for so many people.
When Fifa tell us that there are approximately 256 million playing football worldwide, we can only begin to grasp the possible enormity of the situation.
I am sure that they, along with the rest of us, will seek reassurance that involvement in the beautiful game does not put players at risk of long term health issues, particularly when some changes to the game may help to minimise the risk.
Recent research by the Drake Foundation claims that the condition may be connected to repeated head impacts, caused by collisions and thousands of headers. This study is different to many that have gone before as for the first time it included post-mortem examinations on six players who suffered dementia.
The study revealed that all of them had suffered from a tearing to a brain membrane consistent with chronic, repetitive head impacts from playing football. However the study is still inconclusive and a lot more research is required to clearly establish a link.
As part of a legal settlement in November, US Soccer recommended that players shouldn’t head the ball at age 10 and under. From age 11 to 13, players may be allowed to head the ball during matches but have only limited exposure in training. Scotland are currently looking at their own findings before they come out with a definitive statement.
In other news, it looks as if the battle is over and archery, badminton, fencing, table tennis weightlifting, goalball and wheelchair rugby have lost the war against being dropped from the list of sports who receive funding from UK sport.
The only winner, at this moment in time, is the Paralympic version of weightlifting and powerlifting, who after stating their case, have had their funding re-routed from the English Institute of Sport direct to British Weightlifting.
We all know how important it is to balance the books, however for these sports, this is their lifeline to international representation through their respective GB organisations and they feel it has been cruelly taken from them.
This will impact on various areas within these sports and it is a worrying time for the many people – coaches, medical staff – who are currently employed through this fund to support the athletes.
Also it will affect each of the sports in their quest to create elite role models for the next generation of athletes, which is one of the routes into encouraging new participants into sport.
One of the reasons given is that there is less revenue coming out of the National Lottery to invest in sport and there are more demands on them to share it with other ‘good causes’.
However, there is disbelief in quite a few of the sports concerned as several of them felt that they had over-achieved at the last Olympics and that they were comfortably in line to receive funding to assist with their preparation for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
There has to be sympathy for both sides in this situation, difficult decisions have to be made where finance is concerned, even although we are talking about a staggering £345million of investment which will cover 31 Olympic and Paralympic sports for their preparation for 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
The problem is that this is £2million less than the record amount invested in the previous cycle for Rio.
This debate looks set to rumble on as the sports now have one final opportunity, if they choose, to change the decision and can take their case to independent arbitration at Sport Resolutions.
Difficult days for those involved as precious time, which could be productively used elsewhere, is now taken up by the need to prepare and present their case, for a third time, to hopefully reverse this decision.
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