Italian soccer club to limit heading in youth teams: ‘We must protect kids’
Serie A club Como have set out a new pathway in its academy to limit children’s exposure to the impacts of heading a football and to protect brain health.
The Italian outfit introduced new measures for their youth teams which aim to “protect young players” by limiting the amount they head the ball in training sessions and games.
The approach, which Como said is designed to “reduce avoidable head impacts, support player welfare and encourage better long term technical development”, follows wider guidance from governance which has sought to reduce the frequency of children heading the ball in recent years.
What is Como’s guidance?
Como said at under-10 level, there will be no heading in training or matches, with throw-ins instead taken by passing the ball along the ground, and corners replaced by throws which are played on the floor.
At under-11 level, Como said heading techniques may be introduced towards the end of the season, but with a light rubber ball.
Como said under-12 players would be taught heading technique once a month, again with a light rubber ball, with a maximum of five headers in a session. The team will be encouraged to play a possession-based style in matches, which will still be played under regular rules set out by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC).
At under-13 level, Como said heading will remain “carefully limited” in training, once a week with a maximum of five headers in a session, and that throw-ins would be taken by hand but directed below head level.
The club — whose men’s first team will debut in the Champions League in the upcoming season — also issued general guidance at all age levels of its academy, which says coaches “will reduce repetitive and unnecessary heading exposure” and that over-inflated balls would be avoided. The guidance will also be reviewed throughout the season.
Raphael Varane, the former Manchester United defender who sits on Como’s board of education, said: “I have spoken several times before about the need to take head impacts seriously in football and the absolute need to protect our kids.
“For young players, the best approach is clear rules, good coaching, comprehension and a culture where welfare and safety come first. This pathway reduces unnecessary contact at the youngest ages, when the brain is still growing, and then teaches the skill properly, step by step, with the right control.”
Varane, who played at centre-back for United, Real Madrid and France during his career, has previously been outspoken about the impact of suffering concussions in matches and the how his body has been “damaged” by heading the ball.
In 2024, he spoke about how a lack of understanding around head injuries proved harmful to him and other footballers, while he also called for limited use of heading the ball during training sessions.
Como’s head of development, Osian Roberts, said that by limiting children’s exposure to heading, it allows them to focus on more technical aspects of the game, and will allow players to learn heading technique with “care and confidence”.
What are the rules in UK?
In May 2024, the English Football Association (FA) announced a plan to phase heading out of matches for children under 12 over the course of three years.
The FA’s announcement followed the success of a two-year trial by football’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (IFAB). Measures, such as the awarding of an indirect free-kick if a player deliberately heads the ball, were introduced in order to discourage children from heading. They applied from league level down to grassroots and school matches.
The FA was the first national association to adopt the measures following IFAB’s trial, and it provides guidance for various age categories which discourages players from practicing contested headers until U18 level.
In 2021, the Premier League introduced concussion substitutes, allowing teams to replace a concussed player during a match, and that not counting towards the substitution limit. The Athletic reported in February that several organisations, including the Premier League, English Football League (EFL), and global players union FIFPRO, increased the pressure on IFAB to introduce temporary concussion substitutes, which would allow a player with a suspected head injury to be temporarily replaced while they receive the necessary medical attention.
The problems around head impacts are not limited to football. More than 1,100 ex-amateur and professional rugby union and league players have brought legal action against the sport’s governing bodies claiming they have been left with serious neurological conditions, depression and anxiety as a result of repeated concussive and sub-concussive blows.
Lawyers of the former players allege the governing bodies breached their duty of care, but World Rugby has argued in its defence that it had no such duty and that injuries are an “inherent risk” in the sport. All the organisations are rigorously defending the claims.
What about the U.S.?
The U.S. Soccer Concussion Initiative, introduced in 2015, prohibits children aged 10 years or younger from heading the ball during practice or matches. Headers are also reduced in practice for those aged 11 to 13.
The introduction of the measures resolved a legal case that began in August 2014, when a group of parents and players filed a class-action lawsuit in United States District Court in California charging FIFA, U.S. Soccer and the American Youth Soccer Organization with negligence in treating and monitoring head injuries.
The suit sought rule changes rather than financial damages, and targeted the Laws of the Game as well as several American organisations.
According to the original filing, nearly 50,000 high school soccer players sustained concussions in 2010 — more players than in baseball, basketball, softball and wrestling combined.
Like with rugby in the UK, other U.S. sports also pose issues. Youth-level football has been subject to limited exposure with full-contact tackling during practice. The CDC Head Impacts Study found a 42 per cent drop in head impacts in youth programs which reduced the number of contact sessions.
The NFL has taken a number of measures in attempts to reduce concussion rates, including making hits to the head illegal, adding position-specific helmets and allowing players to wear Guardian Caps — a soft-shell cover over the helmet.
What is the impact of repeatedly heading the ball?
A study published in 2023, led by the University of Nottingham and commissioned by the FA and the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), showed that medically diagnosed dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases were three times more prevalent among retired professional footballers than in the general population.
In July, an inquest heard that English World Cup winner Nobby Stiles suffered a progressive brain disease from heading the ball at least 136,000 times in his career. Stiles died in 2020, aged 78, after a number of years with advanced dementia and a brain injury known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
CTE is an incurable type of dementia which can lead to dramatic changes in mood, behaviour, and cognition.
In 2002, former West Brom footballer Jeff Astle died, with a coroner later recording the verdict of death by industrial injury. Ex-Wales international Alan Jarvis’ death in December 2019 was also recorded as an industrial disease.
Five of the starting players in England’s World Cup final win over Argentina in 1966 were diagnosed with dementia.
In April, a Loughborough University study, funded by the FA and conducted independently, identified “distinctive pressure waves” in the frontal brain region when the head meets the ball. The researchers said this was “previously unreported” and provided some explanation for the mechanics — and potential neurological consequences — of performing headers.
Dr Ieuan Phillips, lead researcher on the paper and a PhD graduate at Loughborough, said that the pressure wave is a “really distinctive form of energy transfer” which has been “well-established” as a cause of brain injuries in other contexts, such as low-level military blasts.