Ten "high force" headers a week. That is what professional clubs in England are advised to stick to in training, and the word doing the work in that sentence is advised. A Labour MP now wants the limit written into law.
Grahame Morris, who represents Easington in County Durham, tabled a parliamentary motion on Tuesday asking the government to restrict how often a player can head the ball in training. He told BBC Sport the idea was to draw attention to the evidence tying repeated head impacts to neurodegenerative disease, and to push ministers into "a more active role in prevention, education and player protection".
What the motion asks for
It is an Early Day Motion, which matters. EDMs let MPs put a view on the record and collect signatures from colleagues, but there is no guarantee one will ever be debated, however many names it gathers. So nobody should expect a heading law by Christmas.
Still, the list of demands is specific. Morris wants legal limits on repetitive heading in training, and a task-force drawn from several government departments, with doctors, player representatives, campaigners and the football authorities around the table, to work out safeguards that can actually be enforced. He wants chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, recognised as a public health concern. He wants a national plan for players' brain health, and better teaching about the risks, in schools and through the PE curriculum included.
The motion backs a petition lodged in September by the charity Head Safe Football. The figure campaigners keep returning to is this one: researchers have found that footballers are three and a half times more likely to die of a neurodegenerative disease than the rest of the population.
Why campaigners say guidance has failed
Football has not done nothing. The FA has phased out deliberate heading in grassroots matches for children aged 11 and under, and recommends no more than 10 headers a week in amateur training. Scotland went further and banned heading in professional training on the day before and the day after a game.
Dr Judith Gates, who founded Head Safe Football, thinks all of that falls down at the same point. "What we are finding is that coaches and parents don't know of the guidance, or the ban. Or they do not know why it exists," she told the BBC. Her husband Bill, the former Middlesbrough defender, died with CTE. She does not pretend a legal cap would be simple to police. Who counts headers on a Tuesday night at an under-14s session? But her argument is that voluntary rules have had their chance.
Burnham and the compensation question
The timing is not an accident. Prime Minister Andy Burnham used an interview with the Telegraph to call on English football to formally recognise what he described as the game's dementia crisis, and to set up an "industrial injuries" compensation scheme for former players. In a statement to BBC Sport he said families affected by dementia and brain injury "should never have had to fight so hard to be heard".
That follows the inquests into the deaths of Nobby Stiles, a World Cup winner in 1966, and the Scotland defender Gordon McQueen. Both found that repetitive heading had contributed.
Money is where this gets uncomfortable for the sport. The PFA and the Premier League run a brain health fund that has paid out about £1m a year since 2023, which campaigners say does not come close to covering care costs. The FA has not put money into it. A spokesperson said the governing body continues to invest in research, has brought in guidance at every level, and that the link between heading and long-term brain health "remains the subject of ongoing scientific and medical research".
That last line is the real dispute. Families who have sat through inquests think the science is settled enough to act on. The FA's wording suggests it is not ready to say so.
Key facts: Early Day Motion tabled Tuesday 10 November 2026 by Grahame Morris MP (Labour, Easington). Current guidance in England: 10 high-force headers a week in professional training, 10 headers a week at amateur level, no deliberate heading in matches at under-11 and below. PFA and Premier League brain health fund: about £1m a year since 2023.
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