Sunday, 9 May 2021
The concussion discussion has been going on for a long time in sport, and the talking is far from done.
Step by step, however, a combination of academic findings, rending personal testimony and legal action is creating significant change within sports where physical contact is a constant, or even the whole point.
The long-running debate about whether boxing, where concussion is the gold medal outcome, should be banned, is now being extended to other combat sports such as mixed martial arts.
The International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) was among sporting Federations to have submitted evidence online in March to the United Kingdom Government s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Inquiry into Concussion in Sport, the latest enquiry in this broad area.
Clubs and Uefa have been at loggerheads over the famous competition
Credit: REUTERS
The collapse of the Super League has seen the Champions League restored as club football’s premier cup competition.
But what does the future hold for the tournament? Is its revamped format, ratified this week, simply a Super League by the back door and what happens now with those rebel clubs who tried to breakaway?
Telegraph Sport breaks down the main issues.
How will the revamped Champions League work?
Formally ratified on Monday in defiance at the Super League’s launch and due to begin in 2024, the revamped tournament essentially replaces the current 32-team group stage, which is split into eight groups of four, with one of a single 36-team group using the so-called ‘Swiss system’. Instead of playing three group opponents home and away across six match-days, teams will play 10 different opponents of varying strengths.
Irish Football Association President David Martin has been elected as a FIFA Vice-President.
Mr Martin was one of three candidates for the vacant vice-president position reserved by world football’s governing body for the four UK football associations.
At the election at the UEFA Congress staged in Montreux, Switzerland, earlier today he secured 48 votes.
Also in the frame were Scottish Football Association vice-president Michael Mulraney and Football Association of Wales president Kieran O Connor.
Mr Martin said: “I am delighted to have been elected as a FIFA Vice-President by the UEFA member associations at the 2021 congress. It is great for both the association and the country.”
BACK in the day, my first book as a commissioning editor was to publish the autobiography of the football referee, David Elleray. It says something about how old I am that one of the major incidents in the book was an infamous tackle by Roy Keane on Alf-Inge Haaland: this year, the hottest prospect in world football is Haaland’s son, Erling. David Elleray might have hung up his whistle, but now has a greater influence on the game as technical director of IFAB, the International Football Association Board. You might not have heard of IFAB, but if you’re a football fan, you’ll be familiar with their work.
VAR checking offside decisions has often been a lengthy process (Paul Ellis/PA)
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Time limits on marginal offside calls should be considered to help with the flow of the game, according to the man who chaired the most recent meeting of football’s law-making body.
The advent of VAR has brought greater scrutiny on to the offside law, with many players and pundits frustrated and confused by some of the borderline calls that have been made where sometimes only a player’s upper arm is ahead of the final defender.