In Tuesday evening’s Champions League Semi-Final first leg at White Hart Lane between Tottenham Hotspur and Ajax, one big moment of concern was seeing Jan Vertonghen suffer a serious looking head wound after a clash with teammate Toby Alderweireld.
Having been taken off the pitch and patched up, including a new kit given all the blood, Vertonghen attempted to play on but quickly suffered a problem and manager Mauricio Pochettino helped to support him and help him off the pitch.
To save overly repeating the story, I’ll link it in.
Vertonghen Now Has To Be A Spurs Doubt After Ajax Concern
In any event, and as per the link, the player explained that it wasn’t a concussion issue, he simply went weak and briefly fainted after the clash and it seemed obvious that it would give rise to additional talk about the concussion protocol in the game.
Vital Spurs member Jod offered.
“The really worrying thing about the incident last night was that the club say their medical staff followed the concussion protocols, which suggests those protocols aren’t fit for purpose. In rugby after any clash of heads a player goes off to be checked. The club can bring someone off the bench to replace him. If he passes the tests the substitution is reversed, if not it becomes permanent, seems to me a much safer system.”
As yesterday drew on, brain injury charity Headway were in the press suggesting the very same thing, calling on football to introduce ‘temporary concussion substitutions’ given how difficult it is to quickly come to a ‘reliable diagnosis’.
As per the BBC report, they are right to comment that in football, especially games of a greater magnitude, it doesn’t matter how well trained staff are, there will always be an unwritten and unspoken pressure on them to make a decision quickly given the disadvantage a team suffers whilst a player is being treated.
Take that pressure out of it by enabling a side to continue with eleven players on a pitch and it simply becomes far safer for everyone involved.
If the player has suffered a concussion that isn’t more immediately diagnosed, they have the time to and the substitute remains in play. Having checked the issue out without the pressure, if the player is fine to continue, the substitute returns to the bench.
No harm no foul and I can’t believe anyone would be against such a simple rule change and it would take one Board meeting to put into place. Not even that really, the Premier League and the Football Association could have the paperwork sorted by the time Everton welcome Burnley to Goodison Park on Friday evening if they wanted.
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