A potentially devastating storm system heading our way?
It must feel just a bit like that for the powerbrokers of rugby league in Australia, with the news that has come out of the UK this week.
Mitchell Moses suffered a serious concussion in Parramatta’s Finals Week 1 loss to Penrith.Credit:Getty
I refer to the 75 players who have just launched a class action against the Rugby Football League, alleging that because of the League’s negligence in failing to protect them from the ravages of concussion they have suffered everything from early dementia, to CTE, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, motor-neurone disease and innumerable issues of mental health.
This action follows the successful one brought in America by former NFL players which saw a billion-dollar pay-out, and the current one underway brought by 220 English rugby union professionals against the Rugby Football Union, alleging similar negligence. (The league players are using the same legal firm used by their union counterparts.)
The guts of the players’ claims are that they were mere fodder in an incredibly lucrative industry, fed in at one end to produce huge wealth at the other – and denied a duty of care to their head injuries on the way through, which would have helped mitigate all the conditions they are suffering.
Of course footballers must expect torn ligaments and broken bones, and yes, concussions. But the unifying theme of these class actions is the allegation that despite the administrators knowing of the devastating consequences of repeated concussions and sub-concussive impacts, they were still kept on the field after heavy hits to the head, still put back out there too soon, still obliged to do constant full-contact drills in training that had the cumulative effect of brain-damage.
The British complainants allege the defendants had:
- Allowed, sanctioned, tolerated, and overseen rugby league matches “that proceeded without any proper or appropriate regard for the safety of players as regards head contacts;
- “[Failed to] ensure that a properly qualified individual was in charge of the treatment of head injuries within the sport and the systems, protocols and enforcement that related to the same;
- “[Failed to] respond to changes in the intensity and physicality of the game of rugby league over the course of the 1980s and 90s through the adaptation of rules, protocols, guidance, officiating or at all;
- “[Failed to] institute independent pitch-side medics leading to over-reliance on club medics who are heavily conflicted.”
These are all very familiar themes in rugby league in Australia, yes? This columnist, for one, has ranted about these very things for the past decade and more. The class action has not yet emerged. But it will. The personal stories behind the headlines are devastating, and perhaps most shocking of all in Britain is just how young many of them are.
The most famed of the British complainants is the British Lion who went by the nickname of “Bobbie Dazzler”, Bobbie Goulding, who is still just 50 years old – though many of the other complainants are in their 40s, and even late 30s.
“We are crying out for help . . .” Goulding told The Mirror on Tuesday. “But rugby league has washed its hands of us. When the specialist said, ‘You’ve got early onset dementia,’ Paula and I both started crying … The scariest bit is not knowing how fast it will progress. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
Bobbie Goulding playing for St Helens in 1997.Credit:Getty
“I’ve never been scared of anything in my life, but I’m scared of this. I sit looking out the window for six or seven hours. I don’t realise time is passing. There’s mad, bad headaches, where you feel so sick you can’t lift your head off the pillow and I have to take anti-dizziness tablets every day, otherwise the room starts spinning.”
That low rumbling of thunder getting louder, the flashes of lightning getting brighter is the legal storm focused on players just like him. It will hit rugby league in Australia in the next couple of years or so, and possibly the other football codes too. In the face of it, the still cavalier approach we sometimes see to obvious concussions is nothing less than legal insanity.
But the headline here is not just the clash of players united against the football authorities, in a legal dispute to come. It is the all too real catastrophic impact on some of the players right now. I spent Tuesday evening at a tight dinner which included three former league players, among them Mario Fenech, who recently went very public with his own struggles, featuring on Channel Seven’s Spotlight.
He is as fine a man as ever, but a shadow of the one he was. In his case he is blessed to have a very loving spouse and children supporting him, while organisations like the Men of League have been fantastic in reaching out and helping other players who are struggling.
Mario Fenech at South Sydney training in September.Credit:Getty
But the news of the evening was – beyond the legal war to come – just how many former players there are out there, suffering today. One of them is no less than Ray Price who went public on the day of the NRL grand final detailing his own struggles with early dementia.
All football codes – both as administrations and communities – need to get to grips with this issue, urgently. Get your legal house in order. Don’t just have protocols – enforce them! And in the meantime reach out to those who are suffering right now, support them, and sustain the contact.
