Are heading football too dangerous? "If we ban children, they won't have the right technique."

Is heading a football player's health compromised? Scientific studies have highlighted a link between heading and brain dysfunction in some players. In 2019, a study by the University of Glasgow on former Scottish footballers showed that they are 3.5 times more likely than average to develop a neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

Should we ban headers or limit them to a certain number per session, especially among young people? This is a proposal now supported by former French international Raphaël Varane . On RMC, he suggests limiting the number of headers during training sessions and even banning them altogether among children. Because it is children who have not yet reached cerebral maturity who are the main ones affected.

Invited this Friday morning on RMC, Florian Duparchy, former Reims goalkeeper, gave his testimony on the seriousness of concussions, he who had to end his career because of them.

“I had two concussions too close together and I didn't have the chance to have a proper recovery period between them. The last one was fatal because after the last one, I was declared unfit to play football,” he says.

“The first time, it was a knee to the face. I lost consciousness for several minutes. I had a blackout that lasted more than 2 or 3 days. I was out for a while, but it wasn't long enough. And when I was coming back, I took a harmless ball to the head like every goalkeeper takes quite regularly, and I took it very badly, I fell, my vision blurred. And after that, I went to see a neurologist for the first time. He explained to me what a concussion was and explained to me that I was a victim of it,” he emphasizes.

Some clubs have decided to ban heading games for children on their own initiative. This is the case at the club for the children of Karim, 44, an RMC listener.

"Since last year, they've banned headers in the U8, U9, U10, and up to the U12 levels," he says. His children are members of CASEaux in Nice.

For David, a 56-year-old coach, there are already recommendations from the French Football Federation (FFF) to prevent heading from being worked on too early. "Until 11-a-side football in the U13s, heading is prohibited. Even the goalkeeper in 5-a-side football, and in the lower categories, 8-a-side football, is not allowed to kick the ball into the air," he explained on RMC.

And yet, prohibiting working on heads also means not working on the technique itself.

“I played football for 12-15 years. The biggest head impacts are when you hit the wall on a free kick. So we should ban walls. And also involuntary contact. If we ban children from heading goals in training, they won't have the right technique for heading goals,” analyzes Benoît, an RMC listener.

An opinion shared by Cédric, 53, also an RMC listener. "There's a certain hypocrisy because you're not allowed to work on it in training, but you can do it in matches. So it's almost a bit illogical because by not learning the technique for heading, the ones you head in matches will be much less well done and probably more dangerous," he believes.

Some countries, such as Belgium and the United Kingdom, have taken measures accordingly. Our British neighbors have banned heading among under-12s for five years now. In Belgium, it has affected under-10s since the start of this season.

But for some, removing the heads would also distort what football is all about, like Daniel, 70. “If we had stopped using the heads, we would never have won the 1998 World Cup with Zidane's two heads,” says the retiree ironically.