All right, you’re FIFA. Evidence is steadily growing that a lifetime of heading the ball is causing lasting cognitive impairment in your players, and heightening their risk of early-onset dementia. So what do you do? Do you follow the American football model, and basically say, “Uh, we’re aware of the problem, and we’re very concerned about it,” or do you actually take some steps to address the matter? And if so, what steps do you take? Helmets? Or – radically – removing heading from the game?
If I’m FIFA, I begin to think seriously about the latter. Heading is pretty darned important in the game, but it’s not indispensable. I think it can be jettisoned without killing the game. It’s football, after all, not headball. Players would adjust, tactics would adjust. And as a side benefit, most of those injuries that occur from a clash of heads would disappear.
I think it pretty much is indispensable. I don’t think soccer would be viable without heading. It would be too different. And some sort of head gear is definitely out. One could not head the ball properly with such gear.
I can’t see FIFA changing the laws of the game to restrict heading. Just not going to happen. The only way it could was if there was enough data gathered that showed without a doubt that a player, over the course of a career, sustained so much damage to their brain that insurers would no longer cover soccer players at any reasonable price.
IMO, the amount of harm caused by heading a soccer ball is so very much less than the amount caused by head-to-head collisions in American football, that eliminating heading is not even conceivable until sometime after American football (as well as boxing and ultimate fighting) has been outlawed or reduced to flag-football rules.
Don’t see any of that happening. I’m not sure if that is good or bad, but I don’t see it happening.
How can you be so certain? Have any tests been done on this?
An American-style football helmet wouldn’t work, but maybe there’s a design that could provide some protection without being too cumbersome.
I did a quick YouTube search and didn’t turn up any videos of Petr Cech attempting headers in his scrum cap, but then that’s a pretty rare occurrence for goalkeepers in general, much less ones who’ve sustained a skull fracture.
Not certain at all. Anything’s possible. It just seems to me that any head gear that could sufficiently reduce the impact of heading the ball would not leave a player with much control. But hey–technology’s an amazing thing. Who knows?
Football w/o heading would be… a different game. Not happening.
I think it should be eminently possible to develop some sort of “forehead patch” that would absorb most of the shock from straight-on headers while allowing the players to retain control. it might take a few months/years to get used to it, but the next generation of players wouldn’t understand how you could use your bare forehead
I think side-headers and other non-straight-on cases are less frequent and probably somewhat less violent as well and don’t really require dealing with.
Interesting thread. Of course, there already exists a version of football (soccer) without heading - many indoor 5-a-side leagues have a rule about "nothing over waist (or shoulder or head) height, which effectively eliminates heading from the game. Of course, this is played on a much smaller pitch (usually about half the size of a full pitch) and so there is no need for long passes upfield, and there are no corner kicks. So to enforce this in normal football would cause a radical change to the game - too radical, as others have said.
I think the previous responses have nailed it, though - until there is more evidence, the drive is not there to spend money on the technology to solve the problem. Don’t forget that this sort of damage is much more likely to appear later in life (e.g. Muhammad Ali) and footballers who are reaching old age now were pros back in the 60s and 70s, when footballs tended to be heavier (when it rained, due to absorbing water) and harder than they are now. So I think it will be decades before a change is made.
I think it’s do-able to create an interesting, competitive game, with all of soccer’s advantages, by taking heading out of the current game of soccer. Sure it would be different, but every rule change makes the game a little different; the key question is whether you end up with what’s still a good game.
In the open field, there’s not a huge difference between heading a ball and letting it drop to volley/trap it. If two people are going for the same ball, it might get a little weird, since both players are trying to get partly out of the way of the ball and partly in the way, but I think players would adjust
Corner kicks and other plays near the goal would obviously change dramatically, and there might be some period of adjusting rules to make things work, but I think something just as good as current soccer could come out of it. My biggest concern is that the change would significantly advantage the defense, which, IMHO, is the opposite of what the current game needs, but that’s really a minor point.
You know, it’s funny, I was thinking just the opposite. Now, admittedly, defenses would no longer have to worry about the headed goal, but on the other hand, they’d no longer be able to use their heads to knock down crosses. A looping cross would be more likely to drop dangerously, giving an advantage to the attackers. Set pieces would be a mixed bag. As you say, corners would change significantly, probably somewhat to the advantage of the defense. But a free kick from just outside the 18, say? If the wall had to keep their heads down, that would represent a good bit more exposure of the goal than at present.
I think defense gets the advantage because a header can go over a crowd in the box, whereas a kick will have to make its way through all the bodies. I also suspect, but I’m less sure, that you might need less separation from a defender to get off a header as compared to a kick.
I hadn’t thought about the wall, though; that would be an advantage for the attacker. I think a No Header rule would need to be clear that while you can’t jump for a ball or otherwise intentionally get your head in the way, if you’re defending there’s no requirement to duck. Which still gives advantage to the offense compared to current rules, but only opens up a few inches above the wall compared to now (and avoids issues with attackers targeting the heads of defenders).
