THE ENGLISH FA have installed new rules governing head injuries that will apply to the Premier League which kicks off this month.
Football has come under great scrutiny in the past 12 months for the absence of clear concussion guidelines with high profile incidents involving Uruguay’s Alvaro Pereira and Germany’s Christoph Kramer at the World Cup.
The Premier League had its own case concussion last season when Tottenham ‘keeper Hugo Lloris was allowed to play on despite initially looking seriously injured following a clash with Romelu Lukaku.
Under the new rules: A player who has suffered a head injury must first leave the pitch. The decision of whether he is fit to play on will be taken out of the manger’s hands and instead becomes the responsibility of the club doctor. Concussions or loss of consciousness need not be confirmed, but “any suspicion” of concussion will require the player to be substituted.
In addition to the club doctor, there will be a third party ‘tunnel doctor’ who will have access to TV replays if needed to spot visual clues to a loss of consciousness and to gauge the severity of collisions and injuries.
For a player to be deemed fit to return to play, the League will first impose these five steps, each one taking a minimum of one day:
a) No activity
b) Light aerobic exercise
c) Sports specific exercise
d) Non-contact training drills
e) Full contact practice
f) Return to play
The assessment of the player be ongoing throughout the above steps with a minimum recovery period of six days imposed from the time of the injury. A player who suffers two or more suspected concussions during a season must undergo “detailed neuro-psychological testing”.
For cognitive tests to work, players will be submitted for baseline testing before the start of the season. The FA points out that this should already be part of the screening and profiling process performed during pre-season.
