Concussions subs to arrive in EPL next season amid concerns over player safety

The Premier League are ready to introduce concussion substitutes next season in another major change to the way that football is officiated just 12 months after bringing in VAR.

Changing the laws to facilitate concussion subs is on the agenda for the next meeting of the International Football Association Board in February, when the game’s lawmakers are expected to recommend a trial of several systems. Sportsmail has learned that the Premier League want to run the trial next season.

The Premier League were slow to introduce VAR, which was only brought in this season more than a year after it was first used in the World Cup and several other leagues, but are keen to be at the forefront of any experiments involving concussion subs due to concerns over player safety.

IFAB met last week to appoint a panel of medical experts to consider how concussion subs would work in practice, and their findings will be discussed at their next annual general meeting in Belfast on February 29 with a view to introducing trials next season.

Sportsmail has been told that IFAB’s working party, which consists of sports doctors and football experts, are considering two alternative models for concussion subs.

The EFL will consider their position after IFAB’s meeting in February, and will take their lead from the medical experts.

Under the first system any player who is suspected of suffering concussion would be removed from the pitch immediately and not allowed to return. The player would be replaced by a substitute, who would not count towards the three changes permitted for each team.

In another model similar to the one used in rugby union, the player with a head injury would be replaced before being taken to the dressing room, where he would be assessed by a club doctor for a 10 or 15-minute period, after which they would be able to return if deemed medically fit to do so.

In rugby any player with suspected concussion is taken off for a Head Injury Assessment, during which they are replaced by a substitute, and if they are not passed fit to return within 12 minutes the substitution becomes permanent. In approximately 75 per cent of cases in rugby the removed player does not return.

The Premier League are open-minded about which system they would like to trial and will wait to be guided by IFAB before discussing the matter in detail with the clubs, but are preparing to move quickly.

Their next shareholders meeting after the IFAB annual meeting is scheduled for April 3 so the clubs could vote to introduce concussion subs then if a trial has been approved, or discuss the matter before holding a vote at their end-of-season meeting in June.

The FA are very supportive of the idea of concussion subs having part-funded research by the Glasgow Brain Injury Research Group released in October which showed that former professionals are three and a half times more likely to die with dementia and other neurological diseases than members of the public, but accept that it is a matter for individual leagues.

The University of Glasgow research also found that there was a five-fold increase in the risk of Alzheimer’s, a four-fold increase in Motor Neurone Disease and a two-fold increase in Parkinson’s.

The research also found former footballers were almost five times more likely to have been prescribed dementia drugs.

Football’s handling of concussion has been widely criticised following a number of high-profile incidents.

The decision to allow Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen to return to the field during the first leg of their Champions League semi-final against Ajax last April was questioned, while brain injury charity Headway criticised Wales manager Ryan Giggs last month after he said winger Daniel James’ decision to stay down after a serious-looking head injury had been ‘streetwise’.

In addition to concussion subs FIFpro, the international players’ union, are lobbying for independent doctors to be introduced to assess concussion incidents at all matches, but IFAB are not planning to consider this.