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continuing in the game even after he
appears to have been knocked out cold. Álvaro
Pereira of Uruguay, Javier Mascherano of
Argentina and Christoph Kramer of Germany
continued to play after suffering tremendous
blows.
Several weeks later, FIFA announced "a
new research area entitled, 'Mental Health
and Sport,' to help lift the taboo on issues
surrounding mental health in elite athletes
and to build a foundation for the development
of treatment and information materials for
team physicians, coaches and players."
The purpose of the project, according to
FIFA's website, is for players to "feel more
comfortable coming forward to talk about
issues and in order to ease access to
treatment."
Birgit Prinz, the lead researcher on the
project, said, "We have to overcome the
myth that professional football players are
invulnerable."
Let's hope FIFA's research doesn't go the way
of England's Football Association's study.
Although the warrior ethic is certainly
a factor in the concussion dilemma
(Pereira described what happened to him
at the World Cup as "the lights going out"
after his head made contact with the
knee of England's Raheem Sterling,
yet Pereira kept playing), the comments
made on the videos of World Cup coverage
online or on the recent reports of injured
athletes and subsequent lawsuits indicate
that most sports fans do not accept
what Sam Knight refers to as "the
game's cavalier approach to the risks of
brain injury."
In his article "Concussions Can't Be Ignored
by Soccer Anymore," which appeared in the
New York Times in September, Rob Hughes
wrote, "FIFA seems unaware or unwilling
to grasp that head trauma has become the
most serious–and potentially most litigious–
issue threatening all of sports."
Hughes wrote:
"It is good that they are talking. It will be
better if they get the word across that
athletes must be saved, if necessary, from
their own misguided bravery.
Last summer, a group of players and parents
in California filed a class-action lawsuit against
FIFA, U.S. Youth Soccer, American Youth
Soccer and others, alleging these groups have
"failed to adopt effective policies to evaluate
and manage concussions."
(continued on page 24)
