Aleksander Ceferin, the President of European Football Associations, UEFA, has confirmed plans to reform the rules concerning concussions in football that will affect English Premier League, EPL, clubs like: Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and others.
UEFA’s current concussions regulations are different from those of English FA’s rules.
Under the current concussions regulations from UEFA, a referee must stop play if there are concerns of concussion being suffered but the medical team only have three minutes to assess whether the player is to continue, while under the English FA’s rules, a player is unable to play on if there are concerns that concussion has been suffered.
However, Ceferin wants the rules to be restructured following the incident that happened to Tottenham star, Jan Vertonghen, where he was allowed to return to the field after suffering from a concussion during Spurs’ Champions League semi-final encounter against Ajax last month, adding that the defender could have died.
“After Vertonghen’s situation I was scared that something would happen,” Ceferin was quoted by Manchester Evening News as saying.
“Because it was clear when he came back that he didn’t feel well. He could die there.
“We will have discussions with FIFA about it to change the laws of the games. Assessment is easier [in 10 minutes]. Now it is crazy. And you can die because of that.
“I don’t see it as a problem. FIFA is also interested in solving this issue. If something were to happen we would regret it forever.
“You have to do something. And if it helps one out of a million players, you did everything [you could].
“The rule change wouldn’t influence the game, change the game or make it less interesting. Now it [the situation] will move. FIFA is very, very interested in this.”
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