Footy’s Dirty Secret: The Head Trauma Risk We Keep Ignoring

Let me say something that pains me deeply as a man who has spent the better part of forty years loving this game with every fibre of his being: footy might be hurting the players we love to watch, and we’re not doing nearly enough about it.

There. Said it. Carn the Pies — and also, maybe, let’s talk about some hard truths.

The Contact That Makes the Game Also Breaks the Player

I grew up watching blokes crash into each other at full pace and thinking it was the greatest spectacle on earth. I still do, if I’m honest. The contested mark at full back. The big shepherd. The thundering bump that turns a contest on its head. These moments are woven into the DNA of Australian Rules football.

But here’s the thing: experts who study brain health are increasingly telling us that the cumulative effect of all that contact — not just the massive concussions, but teh repeated sub-concussive hits, the thousand little knocks across a long career — may be leaving players with lasting neurological damage they won’t fully feel for decades.

And the AFL, for all the good work it has done on concussion protocols in recent years, has not yet come close to fully grappling with that reality.

What Parents Actually Understand — And What They Don’t

Here’s where I reckon we’ve got a genuine problem at the grassroots level. Talk to any parent at an Under-14s game on a Saturday morning. They’ll tell you they know footy has risks. They’ll nod knowingly about broken collarbones and torn ACLs.

But ask them about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy — CTE — and whether repeated blows to the head over years of junior and senior footy could contribute to it? Most of them genuinely don’t know. And why would they? The AFL hasn’t made it a priority to educate them.

Researchers who study this stuff are pretty clear: we don’t fully understand the long-term consequences yet. The science is still evolving. But that uncertainty cuts both ways. It doesn’t mean we should wait for a mountain of proof before we act — it means we should be cautious now, while the evidence is being gathered.

Because by the time the mountain of proof arrives, a generation of kids will have already played through it.

The AFL Can’t Have It Both Ways

I’m going to say something that might surprise you coming from a Collingwood man who still thinks about the 2023 flag with a warmth that no winter can touch: I actually think the AFL has done some good things on concussion management in recent seasons.

The Head Injury Assessment protocols. The increasing scrutiny on high contact. The fact that players can no longer just shake it off and run back out after getting their bell rung — these are genuine improvements.

But the league cannot keep promoting the bone-rattling collision as a marquee product while simultaneously claiming it takes player welfare seriously. You can’t put a big bump on the weekly highlights package and then wonder why coaches and players still view toughness through a lens that says ‘push through it’.

The culture flows from the top. If the AFL wants parents, players and clubs to take head health seriously, it has to lead from the front — not just in the rules, but in the language it uses and the moments it celebrates.

What the Science Is Actually Telling Us

Now I’m no doctor. I cover footy, not neurology. But I’ve read enough in the past few years to know that the conversation around CTE and contact sport has shifted dramatically.

Studies out of the United States on American football players have found CTE in an alarming proportion of former players’ brains post-mortem. Research closer to home is starting to ask similar questions of Australian Rules and rugby league players. The science is not settled — researchers will tell you that themselves — but the direction of travel is concerning.

What’s particularly worrying is that CTE can only be definitively diagnosed after death. Players may be living with the early stages — mood changes, memory issues, impulse control problems — without connecting it to their playing days at all. Some former players have spoken openly about struggles that, in hindsight, match the profile.

We should of been taking this more seriously five years ago. The fact that we weren’t is not a reason to delay further.

The Junior Game Is Where Real Change Starts

If you really want to protect the next generation of footballers, the junior pathway is where you have to start. Not just with better helmets or mouthguards — though those things matter — but with genuine rule changes that reduce contact at the developmental level.

Some of this work is already happening. Modified rules for younger age groups, smaller ground sizes, different ball sizes. These are smart moves. But we need to go further, faster.

What about mandatory education sessions for parents at the start of every junior season? Not just ‘here’s the first aid kit’ — actual information about what repeated head contact can do over time, what symptoms to watch for, when to pull your kid out of a game regardless of what the scoreboard says.

Clubs need to be empowered to make those calls too. The pressure on junior coaches to keep their best players on the ground, even when they’re showing signs of grogginess, is very real. Culture change at that level is hard but it’s not impossible.

This Isn’t About Softening the Game

Look, I know what the old-school brigade is going to say. They’re going to say we’re trying to turn footy into basketball. They’re going to talk about wrapping kids in cotton wool. They’re going to say that previous generations played just as hard and turned out fine.

And look — I love a big contested game as much as anyone. I was there in 2023 when the Pies ground out that premiership and every single collision felt like it mattered. That contest, that physicality, is irreplaceable.

But protecting players from long-term brain damage is not the same as softening the game. Seatbelts didn’t make cars less useful. Helmets didn’t make cycling less enjoyable. Smart, evidence-based changes to how we manage head contact — especially in the younger age groups — can protect players without killing what makes footy special.

The two things are not in conflict. They only feel that way because change is uncomfortable.

What the AFL Needs to Do Right Now

So what am I actually calling for? A few things, in plain English:

• Fund independent research — not just research it controls the output of, but genuinely independent longitudinal studies of current and former players.
• Educate parents at every level of the game — make head health literacy a non-negotiable part of the junior football ecosystem.
• Review the contact rules in junior football — with a specific lens on reducing cumulative sub-concussive impacts, not just big visible collisions.
• Change the culture of what gets celebrated — think carefully before putting the biggest bump of the round front and centre in every promotional package.
• Establish better support pathways for former players who may be experiencing neurological symptoms and don’t know where to turn.

None of this is radical. None of it would kill the competition. It would just mean the AFL was taking its duty of care as seriously as it takes its broadcast rights negotiations.

The Game Is Worth Protecting — So Are the Players

I’ll be in the stands cheering my lungs out for the Pies every week until they carry me out feet first. I believe in this game. I love this game. My kids grew up going to footy. My granddaughter already knows the words to the club song.

But loving something means wanting it to do better. And right now, Australian football needs to do better by the men — and increasingly women — who sacrifice their bodies for our entertainment every single weekend.

The science might not be fully settled. But the moral case for acting cautiously while we figure it out? That’s as clear as a goal-square mark.

Carn the Pies. And for heaven’s sake, let’s look after our players.