NOS Football••Amended
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Jonna ter veer
Editor NOS Sport
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Jonna ter veer
Editor NOS Sport
Koppen must be banned in Dutch football for children up to the age of twelve and be strongly discouraged for young people up to the age of 18. All skaters (from top athletes to recreational) must also be obliged a helmet in the Netherlands.
These are the most striking measures from a advice published today by the Dutch Sports Council (NLsportraad) to outgoing State Secretary Judith Tielen of Health, Science and Sport (VWS). Research was done at the request of her ministry.
Age -bound measures are also advised for all martial arts (including boxing) and rugby.
Top and recreational sport
The report focuses on the consequences of repeated main contact with many heads, clapping or bumps against the head and falls. The advisory measures apply to both top and recreational sport in the Netherlands. Unions have to get started, the council says, with the help and support of the government. If not, it is up to politics to intervene.
See all advisory measures per sport at a glance below:
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Advice for age limits in football and rugby -
Advice for age limits in kickboxing, Muaythai, MMA, Boxing and Taekwondo -
Advice for helmet obligation in skating and inline sport, touring bike and cycling, skiing and snowboarding, equestrian sport
It is an advice, not yet regulations. The NLsportraad hopes that sports associations and commercial sports providers will first start taking measures in prevention, recognition and recovery.
State Secretary Tielen from VWS says he will read the advice carefully and says in an initial reaction: “I appreciate this important advice on risks with regard to head and brain. This puts the sports council on this important topic socially, at the government and at the sports organizations.”
The KNVB already introduced new guidelines for this season: for example, they advise children up to the age of twelve to head a maximum of five to ten times per training. The union is not for a head ban.
“That they themselves come up with head guidelines, we are very cheering,” says NLsportraad chairman Tom van ‘t Hek. But as far as he is concerned, there is no discussion about whether or not to do a head ban in children under 12 years old, because they have not yet had a say on their health. “They cannot decide themselves.”
Extra vulnerable
In June it turned out that many heads in football – with 1.2 million members the largest sport in the Netherlands – are related to an increased risk of dementia. Children and young people up to the age of 18 are extra vulnerable, because their brains are still developing.
A direct connection between many heads and brain injury in the long term is difficult to prove. Research into this is still developing and almost exclusively aimed at male pros. “We hear the alarm bells, but we don’t know exactly when they go off. In the event of brain injury, however, caution is advisable,” the advice said.
Do you have to worry as a football parent or child? “I would not worry or shoot in the panic position if you sometimes head or have headed,” says Van ‘t Hek. He especially hopes that “we” think very carefully how to reduce that heads. “We especially want people to exercise, that also yields many health benefits.”
Helmet
In skating and short track, a helmet is already mandatory by the international skating association ISU in many parts, such as on the marathon and the massart. But at the individual distances, skaters are still allowed to drive around without a helmet. That must change, says the NLsportraad.
For holidaymakers, ice rinks have hardly any rules. Only in Thialf is wearing a helmet for them since last year. The IJsstadion chose “after an increasing number of incidents with considerable injury”. The Council hopes that wearing a helmet on all ice rinks will be just as common as on the ski slope.
“It may sound heavy,” Van ‘t Hek acknowledges. “But a helmet obligation can seriously prevent acute brain injury. And that is also an important part of the report.”
However, Van ‘t Hek is also realistic and initially looks mainly at the holidaymakers. Top skaters such as Jenning de Boo and Jutta Leerdam does not expect to see it directly on the ice with a helmet. “If everyone starts skating with a helmet, I hope they do that too. So I hope this site will win, but I really understand that the Dutchmen will not be the only one at the Olympic Games in Milan and no one else.”
Measures in this advice affect the original form of sports. Is Van ‘t Hek not afraid that the sports world will find all this going too far? “That chance is always there. But I don’t have the idea that we totally turn football upside down or give the skating sport a totally different prestige.”
National Knowledge Center
The advisory measures also mention the establishment of a national expertise center, which must do knowledge development together with university hospitals and sports associations.
The care and sports sector should also draw up the same type of guidelines for recovery of brain injury. For example, a general practitioner often gives an athlete a different advice than a sports physio, according to the report.
Talents and subtoppers must be better protected. They exercise intensively and are driven, but often do not receive the same medical guidance as a professional athlete, is the conclusion of the NLsportraad, who hopes that unions “find a game for that”.
No specific measures are mentioned for female athletes and parasporters.
In the Netherlands, 176,283 girls and women, according to figures from the KNVB from 2024. They are, just like children, more vulnerable to brain injury than men, according to previous advice from the Health Council.
The Council says it does hope that unions have an eye for them in terms of the development of rules and protective equipment.
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