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Football: should heading games be banned for children?
Football: should heading games be banned for children?
(France 2)
After the footballer Raphaël Varane spoke out in favor of limiting heading among children who practice this sport in “L’Équipe”, the journalist Samuel Ollivier, present on the set of 8 Heures, Monday April 8, takes stock on this topic.
Should we ban heading into our young footballers? In an interview with The Team published on April 2, footballer Raphaël Varane was questioned about limiting heading in children. “I’m pushing hard for it. My seven-year-old son plays football and I advise him not to head. For me, it’s essential”he replied.
“Specialists find it difficult to agree”
“Overall, specialists have difficulty reaching agreement” on the risks of heading among footballers, indicates journalist Samuel Ollivier, present on the set of 8 Heures, Monday April 8. A study from the University of Glasgow (Scotland) dating from November 2019 proves that former footballers are 3.5 times more likely to die from a neurodegenerative disease than the average person.
“But should we automatically attribute the cause of these illnesses to the practice of head games? It is less obvious. The link is not easy to make, it is not yet, for the moment, clearly established”nuance the journalist. “The brain of a child in training is more fragile than that of an adult”he recalls, however.
