Diop incident shows new concussion rules ‘deeply flawed’, brain charity says

Football has been warned that its new concussion rules, which permit teams to make two extra permanent substitutions for head injuries, are “deeply flawed” after West Ham’s Issa Diop played on for seven minutes following a clash of heads with Manchester United’s Anthony Martial in Tuesday’s fifth-round FA Cup match.

The criticism came from the leading brain injury charity Headway, which said the game’s new protocols “had failed their very first test” because Diop was put at risk of serious injury after he was cleared following a two-minute assessment by West Ham’s medical team – only to be then replaced at half-time. Diop had himself been a first-half replacement after a 16th-minute injury to Angelo Ogbonna.

“The decision to allow Diop to return to the field of play after being assessed for concussion in just two minutes, while still on the pitch, shows just how deeply flawed this new protocol is,” said Headway’s chief executive, Peter McCabe. “The new protocol has failed its very first test.”

Headway has repeatedly lobbied for the use of temporary substitutions instead, which it says would allow a player to be properly assessed by doctors for at least 10 minutes – a process used in sports such as rugby union – while another player replaces them.

“Had the FA followed the advice of Headway and other leading experts by introducing temporary substitutes, as successfully used in other sports, Diop would not have been at risk of exacerbating the injury to his brain during the seven minutes he was allowed to play on before half-time,” McCabe said. “The FA must act now to alter the rule and introduce temporary concussion substitutes to avoid such unacceptable risk being taken in the future.”

However the Guardian understands that the Football Association’s position has not changed after the Diop incident and that it maintains permanent substitutions are a safer and better choice.

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The FA believes that the risk with temporary substitutions is that a player could return to the pitch after a 15-minute assessment with an undiagnosed concussion and pick up a second concussion which would be even more serious. The governing body’s view is that if there is any doubt over a player after a head injury, they should be permanently subbed out.

It is also understood that West Ham are confident that they followed the correct protocols and that Diop was accurately assessed on the pitch by their medical staff.