- FootBiz
- Posts
- FootBiz newsletter #137: Will football join the NFL in having a CTE problem?
FootBiz newsletter #137: Will football join the NFL in having a CTE problem?
Plus: a dose of M&A Murmurs and whispers of a World Cup boycott
Ed Malyon & Matt Hughes
January 27, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
Football has long looked to the NFL as an example to follow for its commercial prowess and media rights structures, but it may soon need to follow suit in assessing a potential risk to the future of the game.
On Monday, broadcaster Hayley McQueen revealed that her father, the former Manchester United and Scotland defender Gordon McQueen, had died from dementia attributed to the repeated heading of a football.
Professor Willie Stewart, a consultant at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, was asked to examine McQueen's brain after his death due to his deterioration in his later years, and Stewart described how a membrane in the brain appeared torn and that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was present in various places.
Those familiar with the NFL will know CTE, as it is one of the greatest threats to the league’s long-term future.
In one of the more harrowing pieces of sports journalism you’ll ever read, the New York Times detailed in 2017 how a neuropathologist had studied the brains of 111 former NFL players. 110 of them were found to have CTE, a degenerative disease that experts believe to be caused by repeated blows to the head. The scan images, many depicting literal holes in the brain, leave little doubt as to why so many former players suffered in their retirement.
The NFL has invested tens of millions into research for better understanding of the condition as well as preventative measures it can employ to protect current and future players. A lot of that is helmet technology but the league has also gone as far as changing the very rules of the games to minimise high-speed collisions, most notably the altered kick-off rules that have drawn the ire of President Trump.
Among those 110 brains are tragic stories, but there are many more who weren’t included in the study too. Hall-of-fame linebacker Junior Seau is one of many former players who killed themselves, shooting himself through the chest in a move that preserved his brain for study. Scans would later show he had CTE like hundreds of other former players.
Since an initial settlement in 2013 that was considered a landmark agreement, the NFL has paid more than $1.2bn to over 1600 former players, but a Washington Post investigation found many more suffering symptoms of dementia were denied payouts on a technicality.
Who exactly would be responsible for the equivalent if it were to ever happen in global football is a question we don’t have the answer to at FootBiz, but we do know that governing bodies have been taking increasing notice. The FA agreed to undertake a long-term study after Jeff Astle’s death in 2002, where the coroner recorded a verdict of “death by industrial disease” for the former player renowned for his heading ability.
‘Guardian caps’ are one attempt by the NFL to mitigate cranial trauma
While footballs have become significantly lighter and less dense in their construction, and the likes of Astle and McQueen were playing with old leather balls that became even heavier in wet conditions, football can’t mark itself safe from liability over an issue that would affect far more people than the NFL’s settlement given the sport’s geographic spread.
The Astle study undertaken by the University of Glasgow concluded in 2019 that footballers are 3.5x more likely to suffer from neurological diseases such as dementia, noting “a five-fold increase in the risk of Alzheimer’s, a four-fold increase in motor neurone disease and a two-fold increase in Parkinson’s”.
Such figures are not easily forgotten by those playing the game. As great as the financial rewards are, those who have been around the suffering caused by these illnesses will assure you that no footballer’s salary is worth what they had to endure.
"Dad absolutely loved everything about football, but ultimately, it took him in the end,” said McQueen yesterday.
Hayley McQueen, the daughter of former Scotland defender Gordon
"He went through a horrendous time towards the end of his life. CTE is a very different sort of thing from a traditional dementia - a lot of dad's symptoms were not typical of that or Alzheimer's.
"It depleted my parents' lifetime savings looking for private care for my dad, and we relied on charities for respite care.
"I know a lot of footballers whose families have reached out, who have symptoms very similar to that of my dad, and I think we're going to start to see more and more.
"The 1966 World Cup England team has been pretty much wiped out with neurodegenerative disease. "
I think my dad's main message would be to warn others against the dangers of heading to protect future generations."
More research is needed, but there appears to be little doubt of the link between the game and these conditions.
The real question is what happens next, but this isn’t a problem that can be ignored and it certainly isn’t one that is going to go away as medical science improves and more data amasses.
