FIFA teams up with UN health agency for campaign to educate world soccer about concussion

GENEVA — FIFA teamed up with the World Health Organization on Wednesday for a campaign to educate the soccer industry about the risks of concussion injuries.

“Concussion is a public health issue of concern at all levels of football, and many other sports, requiring greater levels of awareness and action,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

Ten years after the alarming case in the 2014 World Cup final of Germany player Christoph Kramer, world soccer governing body FIFA is sending a toolkit to each of its 211 national federations to help teach at all levels of soccer that symptoms of a head injury can take up to 72 hours to appear.

Kramer continued to play in the final against Argentina for 14 minutes after being injured despite being in clear distress. Match referee Nicola Rizzoli later said he alerted Germany players after Kramer asked if he was playing in the final.

At the 2022 World Cup, Iran goalkeeper Ali Beiranvand was treated for several minutes on the field after clashing heads with a teammate, then continued to play on against England before finally being replaced.

FIFA favors letting teams make an extra substitution to remove immediately a player with a suspected head injury. That lets team medical staff evaluate injuries at length without the pressure of trying to send players back into the game.

At soccer’s rules-making panel, known as IFAB, FIFA has consistently blocked proposals to allow temporary substitutions that would let injured players with a suspected concussion be assessed just for several minutes before potentially returning to the game. FIFA medical advice is that symptoms can take up to 72 hours to develop.

“The symptoms of a concussion can change or evolve within the minutes, hours, days and even weeks after the traumatic event,” FIFA said of the new “Suspect and Protect” campaign. “No match is worth the risk.”