Widow of former Middlesbrough footballer calls for better head protection

The widow of a footballer who played for Middlesbrough is calling for more action to help better protect players from developing brain conditions.

Bill Gates died from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is a disease caused by repeated blows to the head.

His wife, Judith, who is the founder of Head Safe Football, said: "Football needs to listen to the scientists. They should be working in tandem; scientists to inform and to find out more, football to be responding in order to safeguard players of today and tomorrow.

"For example we find that people say 'we don't do heading in training' but the kids then play head tennis, so we have to raise awareness of the dangers of blows to the head. That's something that can be achieved and that's what we're partiuclarly working on.

"If we work on it with the youth, if we actually work on it in explaining why the under nine rules have been created by the FA, then actually we have understanding and we have buy-in."

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