Former Real Madrid defender and current Manchester United player Raphael Varane has revealed in an interview with 'L'Equipe' that he has suffered concussions during his football career, affecting his health and performance. The French player advocates for better care and prevention for footballers, highlighting the dangers of repeated head impacts causing micro-concussions.
Varane shared that Manchester United recommends no more than 10 headers per training session, and that he even advises his 7-year-old son to avoid headers when playing football. The defender admitted that at least two of his worst games were related to concussions suffered days before. “If you look back at three of my worst games, there are at least two where I had a concussion days before,” Varane explains.
One specific example he mentioned was his poor performance in the 2014 World Cup quarter-finals against Germany, a consequence of a heavy blow to the head received in the previous match against Nigeria. Varane described that “I felt eye fatigue, if someone had spoken to me at that moment I don’t know if I would have been able to respond, I was exhausted.”
This concern about brain injuries in football is not new. It dates back to the death of former England striker Jeff Astle in 2002, whose death was attributed to brain trauma accumulated from heading the ball. The family took his death to court, which ruled in their favour: he had died as a result of his work.
However, throughout history there are numerous cases of important footballers who have suffered from neurodegenerative diseases: Tata Brown, 'Hacha Bravo' Navarro or 'Pipo' Rossi are some of them, although the most famous are the cases of Ferenc Puskas and Alan Shearer.
Shearer, the Premier League's all-time record scorer, estimates that 20% of his goals have come from headers and in 2017 he raised concerns about the link between heading the ball and brain disease, advocating for better care for former players with neurological problems.
For his part, Alan Shearer, a legend of English football, suffers from brain damage at the age of 49 and he himself linked this in 2017 to the number of goals he scored with his head.
Shearer, the Premier League's all-time record scorer, estimates that 20% of his goals have come from headers and in 2017, he expressed concern about the link between heading the ball and brain disease, calling for better care for former players with neurological problems. "For every goal I scored with a header I scored a thousand in training, that puts me at risk if there is a link between the two," he told the Mirror.
"When you turn professional, you expect to have back, knee or ankle problems later on. But I never thought football would be linked to brain diseases."
Thanks to the BBC documentary Dementia, Football and Me released in 2017, Alan Shearer became a visible voice on this issue, stating that "Football must look after its players with neurological problems and end this feeling that once your career is over you are thrown into the scrapyard. Football is a tough and beautiful game. Let's make sure it's not a killer."