New studies will be commissioned into what causes the increased risk of dementia among professional players, the Football Association has said.
The increased risk was established by the 2019 FIELD study, conducted by academics at the University of Glasgow, which found footballers were three and a half times more likely to die of neurodegenerative disease than age-matched members of the general population.
The FIELD study was co-funded by the FA and the Professional Footballers’ Association, and now the FA’s independently chaired research task force will commission further research to work out the cause of the increased risk.
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said: “This call for research is the next important step in our commitment to understanding more about the link between neurodegenerative disorders in former professional footballers.
“The interim findings of the FIELD study gave us some groundbreaking insight, however the parameters of the study meant that it was not able to answer exactly what causes the link, which will now be the primary focus for this research.
“Although the pandemic has impacted on our recent progress in medical research, we are now very pleased to be sending out this new call for research that’s aimed at answering our question through robust and extensive analysis.”
