It’s too late for Raphael Varane but football must face its concussion problem

“No one in football wants to find out if football is a killer,” said Dawn Astle, daughter of Jeff, a magnificent footballer and a man who died too young. No further words needed, really. Everything else is window dressing. How could she be wrong because how could you ever want to know, and how could football still be the same once you did?

In 2002, an inquest into the death of Jeff Astle concluded that his job killed him. A further examination of his brain in 2014 found that Alzheimer’s was a previously inexact diagnosis. Astle had suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative condition brought on by repeated mild brain trauma.

Astle is one of so many, countless names that run like a seam through British football greatness. This country bleats on about 1966, our touchstone of sporting nostalgia, ad infinitum. But one topic concerning that day, that team and that time is unforgivably under-processed: five of England’s starting XI in the World Cup final died after suffering from a form of dementia. These are only the most famous.

When an issue is infinitely easier to ignore than immerse yourself into, for a long time people do. For those of us who call football our professional or spiritual home, the acceptance that we are watching potentially life-limiting collisions is hard to understand and harder to bear. Introspection is easier in theory than reality and easier to advise than take as advice.

The work of The Jeff Astle Foundation and others, and the acceptance of responsibility from governing bodies, has brought change both proactive and reactive. A fund has been established by the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), supported by the Premier League, to offer financial assistance to assist former players and their families who have been impacted by neurodegenerative conditions – more will be needed.

From 2021, heading was restricted across the UK at Under-12 level and below and there is an ongoing trial to remove deliberate heading in matches at the same age group and below.

But we must still ask: what will become of the current generation? The balls are less heavy, the sport has changed, but still the risks persevere. This week, Manchester United defender Raphael Varane spoke of repeatedly playing with eye fatigue and lingering concussion that left him feeling “like a spectator” during matches.

It is unpleasant to read because we can spot the unspoken truth. He’s worried that the damage has already been done, to him and his peers.

Elite football offers handsome financial rewards and game-changing standards of life to a precious few. If that comes with inherent risks, so be it. It may be the choice of many to pursue it still. But it does not permit the sport to ignore the issue for a second nor fail to strive for the safest environment for every competitor and there are many hundreds below elite money level.

Pertinent still is the persistent, if hopefully eroding, “man up” culture that exists within professional football. Or, as Roy Keane eloquently put it when asked about concussion in football, “If you’re worried about the physical side of any sport, then play chess”.

There will be supporters who agree. They make their choice, they will say. And honestly, if someone isn’t prepared to lay down the length of their life for a team to win a cup tie then should they be here at all? That’s a view held by more people you know than you’d like to believe.

If there were easy answers available within our immediate grasp, we would already know them. They include, but are not limited to: banning heading entirely at youth level, thus phasing in a ban on deliberate heading at all levels; any head injury provoking a substitution (that doesn’t count as one of your permitted); greater enforced training breaks for those suffering concussions; greater time between matches to allow for recovery.

It’s that last suggestion that is probably the most sensible and easily the least likely to occur. This is not the first time that Varane has spoken publicly about the physical demands upon footballers and won’t be the last time that his warnings go largely unheeded. Whatever the answer is, it won’t be less football. None of this is healthy; none of it seems possible to stop.

“I know that, personally, I won’t live until 100,” Varane said. “I know that I have damaged my body. I have put myself in danger.”

He sounded weary and more than a touch forlorn, a pure love for the sport eroded by the gradual realisation that it doesn’t really care about him, only what he can do and how much can be squeezed out of him. How many more like him are there, living with the fear of what they have already done?