Former football player Wout Holverda has developed severe dementia throughout his football career. Headers played a major role in this. This was established after his death last December by specialists from Amsterdam UMC, who examined the brain of the former Sparta Rotterdam professional. Never before has such a strong link been made between a Dutch footballer’s sports career and dementia – resulting in death. Worldwide, this has rarely been found in football players, because they almost never give permission for this type of post-mortem examination.
Over the past year and a half NRC the family of Wout Holverda. Doctors involved in the study were also interviewed. The results were announced at the beginning of this week. Neurologist Jort Vijverberg calls the findings “unique”. He has been able to rule out reasons other than Holverda’s sports career. “We have been able to see damage in his brain from recurrent blows to the head. In this case, Wout Holverda’s football career is the reason for his illness.” It is most obvious that heading balls caused those blows to the head. Vijverberg argues for more research among other football players.
Also read: What happened in Holverda’s brain?
Specifically, in Holverda’s brain, the condition CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has been found. In the US, this disease is often found in the brains of deceased athletes who played in the National Football League – the top league for American football. The disease has also been detected in the brains of boxers and ice hockey players. In these sports, athletes regularly receive hard blows to the head.
In football, unions have long assumed that blows from headers or collisions cannot cause this type of damage. From previous research by NRC found that sports federations, such as the European football association UEFA, have actively contributed to delaying research into brain injury.
The results of this new research raise many questions, both for science and sport. For example, it is still unclear whether certain players are more susceptible to this type of injury than others. It is also not clear whether more football players – unknowingly – have died with CTE. Vijverberg: “We hope that more football players are willing to donate their brains for research after their death. Only in this way can we answer important questions about the safety of headers and football.”
In 2020, UEFA already came up with a guideline that makes it more difficult for youth players to head during training sessions. In the UK it was decided to ban children’s heads and later also put a cap on heads (up to ten per week) for pros and amateurs of all ages. The Dutch football association KNVB has never opted for a ban. The union’s medics believe that children should learn to head technically with soft balls, so that they suffer less damage later in life.
Wout Holverda scored more than fifty goals for Sparta Rotterdam between 1978 and 1984. He was called up once for the Dutch national team. Holverda died in December after years of severe dementia. Then NRC visited him in the nursing home last summer, he no longer recognized his children. His son Robin Holverda: “We now know that our dad died from the sport he loved most. That’s difficult, but we’re glad it’s clear now. I hope this research will eventually help us learn more about the danger of headers.”
More about Holverda’s brain in NRC Weekend
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 4, 2022
#Scientists #show #Dutch #footballer #dementia #due #sports #career