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England won 3–2. Mexico went out. The World Cup moved on.

But another failure played out in front of millions of people watching the biggest football tournament in the world.

Raúl Jiménez started Mexico’s last-16 match against England wearing the padded headband that has become familiar since his life-threatening injury in 2020. In media coverage it has been described as “medically mandated”. But later in the game, it was gone as he continued to play [1, 2].

This matters because Jiménez’s head protection has been described to the public in powerful terms. Recent coverage has called it a “medically approved” device, while other reports have described him as “medically mandated” to wear custom protective headgear [3, 4].

The original medical statement was more specific. After his skull fracture healed, Wolves club doctor Matt Perry said Jiménez would wear a protective headguard “to cover the area of bony injury” for the rest of his career [5].

That distinction is the heart of this story. Jiménez suffered an injury to his skull and his brain. The equipment has been publicly explained in relation to the former. Football must start talking far more seriously about the latter – brain protection.

Protecting a fracture site is not the same as protecting the brain.

And when localised padding is presented on football’s biggest stage as “medically approved head protection”, millions of parents, players and young athletes are left to work out the difference between brain and scalp protection for themselves.

That is not good enough.

Raúl Jiménez suffered a major traumatic brain injury and skull fracture during Wolves’ Premier League match against Arsenal on 29 November 2020. He underwent emergency surgery and spent months under the supervision of specialist medical teams before being cleared to return [5].

In his own account of the injury, Jiménez said the fractured bone was accompanied by bleeding inside the skull that was putting pressure on his brain; this was why surgery had to happen quickly [6].

Wolves initially described the equipment used during his recovery as “high-tech protective headgear”, intended to provide protection to his skull as he resumed closer-contact training [7].

By May 2021, the official medical position was clear. His skull fracture had healed well; he would wear a protective headguard over the area of bony injury [5].

He returned to Premier League competition on 14 August 2021; 258 days after the original collision [8].

Raúl Jiménez suffered a major traumatic brain injury and skull fracture, but the “head protection” offered as he returned to play was intended only to protect against the latter.


In the final stages of the game, Raúl Jiménez removed his head protection and continued to play.

Does Raúl Jiménez’s headband protect the brain?

There is no publicly available evidence showing that Raúl Jiménez’s current headband provides any credible brain protection.

It is foam padding that covers a small, localised part of his head. The publicly stated medical purpose of his headguard was specific; to cover the area of his previous bony injury [5].

And this exposes the bigger issue. Football remains focused on the outside of the head, the scalp and the skull while the far more important issue of protecting the brain continues to be neglected.

Brain protection has to begin with the mechanism of injury. When a player’s head is struck by a ball, player, equipment or ground, the head will accelerate and the brain rotate inside the skull. This rotational motion is strongly associated with deformation and shear strain within brain tissue. Biomechanical research and modern neuroscience have demonstrated the importance of rotational kinematics in understanding brain strain and traumatic brain injury risk [9].

Brain protection needs to be deliberately designed to reduce the transmission of the rotational forces most strongly linked to brain injury.

What standard does Raúl Jiménez’s custom head protection actually meet?

Jiménez has worn several visibly different versions of “custom head protection” since his injury.

The early equipment was described by Wolves as “high-tech protective headgear”. The version seen at the World Cup is visibly more localised and minimal [7].

Yet there is no publicly available manufacturer identification, no CE/UKCA Declaration of Conformity, no published applicable test standard, no independent biomechanical performance report and no publicly available CE or UKCA Category II PPE identification for the versions Jiménez has worn.

This raises an obvious but important question.

Why is the world being told it is protective without being shown what its protective evidence is?

In Great Britain and Europe, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) products placed on the market must meet the applicable health and safety requirements under the relevant regulatory framework. The legislation separates CE and UKCA PPE into risk categories; Category I includes certain minimal risks such as superficial mechanical injury, while Category II covers risks that do not fall into Categories I or III [10, 11]. For protection beyond cuts and scrapes CE/UKCA Category II PPE is required.

Football’s Laws of the Game permit non-dangerous protective headgear made from soft, lightweight padded material [12]. But permission to wear something is not proof that it offers credible brain protection.

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Watch: Conventional sporting head protection is not designed to protect the brain.

If it is medically necessary, why was he playing without it?

Jiménez’s head protection has been described in public reporting as “medically approved” and “medically mandated” [3, 4].

Yet in the later stages against England, the band was no longer on his head.

This was not a player standing on the touchline waiting to have equipment adjusted. Jiménez remained in active competition. Live match reporting records him continuing to take part in attacks and attempting shots late in the game [2].

The question is not why Raúl Jiménez personally removed it. This is not about blaming the player. The question is institutional.

How can equipment be described to the public as medically necessary and yet apparently become optional during active play?

The bigger question here is around who has responsibility for player welfare.

Football cannot use the language of medical necessity to reassure the public and then behave as though the protection itself does not matter.

That contradiction undermines trust.

More importantly, it further confuses and conflates a public that already struggles to understand what head protection and brain protection actually mean.

Football is damaging public understanding of head protection

This is not the first time.

Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sánchez appeared at Wembley wearing a rugby headguard following a head injury. As Rezon explained at the time, the problem was not the player’s personal decision. It was the public message created when traditional head protection was placed in front of a global audience with little explanation of what it was actually designed or tested to protect [13].

Before that Petr Čech’s padded head protection became one of the sport’s most recognisable images. Now Raúl Jiménez has taken localised custom padding onto the World Cup stage.

The circumstances are different, but the confusion, conflation and consequence are the same.

When millions of people see padding on a professional footballer’s head and reasonably interpret it as protection, the distinction between covering the head and protecting the brain becomes even harder to understand.

Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sánchez appeared at Wembley wearing a rugby headguard following a head injury.

The public already does not understand brain protection

We know this confusion exists because we have measured it.

The Rezon Brain Protection Survey, developed with the UK National Innovation Centre for Ageing and Voice at Newcastle University, found a clear gap between confidence in recognising concussion and understanding of sub-concussions, cumulative brain injury and brain protection. The survey also identified misconceptions around youth vulnerability and the difference between traditional head protection and brain protection [14].

That is why what happens on the World Cup stage matters.

  • Elite sport is one of the most powerful educators in the world.
  • Children copy what professional athletes wear.
  • Parents look at elite sport for cues about safety.
  • Grassroots coaches absorb terminology and practice from the professional game.

Football should be closing the knowledge gap.

Instead, it repeatedly presents protective-looking equipment to millions of people without clearly explaining what it protects, what it does not protect and what evidence supports its use. That has consequences.

The Science Has Moved On

Modern brain protection has to start with the mechanism of brain injury.

Brain injury in sport is strongly associated with rotational motion. During head impact, rotational forces cause the brain to rotate inside the skull and are strongly associated with brain injury mechanisms such as shear strain and neural tissue damage [9].

This is why traditional rugby headguards and localised padding are the wrong answer to a modern brain-injury question.

Padding designed around coverage, comfort and soft-tissue protection is not designed to reduce rotational force transmission to the brain. A product can cover the scalp and still fail to address the mechanism most relevant to brain injury. A product can look protective and still fail to provide the protection that matters most.

The question is not whether Jiménez’s, Čech’s or Sánchez’s head-worn protection made them look protected.

The question is what each product was designed to protect, how it was tested, what safety standards it met and whether it was independently demonstrated to reduce the biomechanical mechanisms associated with brain injury.

That is the standard modern brain protection should meet.

What players and parents need to know about football and soccer head protection


The biggest mistake in the debate around football head protection is to think only about concussion.

Concussion matters. But protecting the brain means understanding the wider problem: how the brain moves inside the skull during head impacts, how often those impacts happen, and how exposure accumulates over time.

For players and parents looking at football head protection or soccer headgear, five things matter.

Brain injury is about rotational force transmission

The primary biomechanical driver of brain injury in sport is rapid rotational movement of the brain during impact [9].

Rotational forces cause shear strain within brain tissue, which is associated with tearing of tiny blood vessels and brain cells resulting, over time, in the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier and the creation of damaging microscopic neuro-inflammation [16, 18].

How padded a product looks means very little. The important factor is how well head protection reduces the transmission of rotational forces to the brain. For credible brain protection, rotational force reduction must be a central consideration.

Repeated head impacts matter

Football still treats the visible concussion as the defining brain injury event, but a player does not need to be diagnosed with concussion for a head impact to matter.

Research on repeated small-force asymptomatic impacts, sub-concussions, has reported measurable effects on brain health and has linked the cumulative damage from sub-concussions with changes in cognition, brain function and neurological risk [17, 18, 20].

Players experience repeated sub-concussions without symptoms and without being diagnosed with concussion. These sub-concussions occur through heading, player-to-player contact, falls and other impacts during training and matches. The long-term concern is cumulative damage from sub-concussions because they happen hundreds of times more frequently than concussions.

Research increasingly indicates that the intensity and accumulated damage of sub-concussions are the most important factor when considering long-term brain health and CTE pathology [17, 18].

Waiting for a concussion is not protecting the brain; it is merely waiting for a brain injury to become clinically visible.

Brain protection must focus on reducing the transmission of rotational forces to the brain in concussive and sub-concussive impacts.

CTE is a cumulative exposure problem

The evidence does not support CTE risk being about diagnosed concussions. Consequently, the focus on concussions in sport misses the majority of the brain injury risk in sport and the wider problem of repeated sub-concussive exposure.

Modern neuroscience increasingly focuses on cumulative exposure to sub-concussive head impacts and the intensity of those impacts [17]. This is why a brain-health strategy built only around recognising diagnosed concussion will always be incomplete. Concussion management matters; but cumulative sub-concussion exposure reduction matters too.

Risk begins in childhood

Brain exposure does not begin when a player signs a professional contract. It begins when sub-concussions begin, which for many athletes is during childhood sport.

Research examining young contact-sport athletes has identified neuropathological changes in young people exposed to repeated head impacts [19].

In a separate study of youth American football players aged 8 to 13, measurable white-matter changes were recorded across a single season in athletes who did not sustain a clinically diagnosed concussion [20].

Parents, coaches, schools and clubs should not wait for a child to suffer a diagnosed concussion before thinking seriously about brain protection.

Heading is only part of the problem

The brain-injury discussion in football is often framed around heading. But football exposes players to multiple head-impact mechanisms.

In one biomechanical study, ball contact accounted for 13% of recorded cases. Upper-extremity contact accounted for 38%, while head-to-head contact accounted for 30% [21].

The lesson is not that heading is irrelevant. It is that removing heading alone cannot address every source of head-impact exposure in football.

Football Needs a New Standard

Football needs a new brain protection standard; not another role model wearing scalp protection that was never intended to protect the brain.

The FA, FIFA, national associations, clubs and elite players all shape what millions of people understand protection to mean. With that influence comes responsibility.

The issue is no longer simply whether a player is permitted to wear padding.

The issue is whether protective equipment is legally compliant, scientifically relevant and supported by evidence appropriate to what it claims to protect.

Elite players influence what children wear. Professional clubs influence what parents trust. Governing bodies influence what the entire game accepts.

Brain protection is too important to be communicated through appearance on a global stage, assumption and confusion.

Why parents and players are choosing to protect the brain

Parents and players are already asking better questions about football and soccer head protection.

They are looking beyond the appearance of padding. They want evidence.

Rezon Halos® is engineered to reduce rotational force transmission in concussive and sub-concussive head impacts. Independent testing using Virginia Tech methodology demonstrated reductions in rotational force transmission of up to 61%, and a 74% reduction in concussion risk [23, 24].

Halos® also holds CE and UKCA Category II PPE certification and a Virginia Tech 5-star safety rating [22, 24, 25]. Rezon Halos® is also compliant with FIFA Rule 4.

That is what the brain-protection discussion should be about. Purpose. Testing. Evidence.

Not simply whether something padded can be worn.

England won the match. But once again, on football’s biggest stage, brain protection lost to appearance, assumption and confusion.

Customer reviews

Rezon Halos® is worn across 19 sports and 34 countries.

“I am not one to usually leave a review, but I had to let people know how impressed I am.

After reading about CTE and sub-concussions I wanted to find something that could protect me whilst playing football.

The Halos® is incredible, it is small, lightweight and to be honest, when I am playing, I forget I am wearing it. It feels very secure and doesn’t slip.

It is the first piece of head protection I’ve used that feels like it was designed for everyone – men, women, and children!”

Jowene Chia
Rezon Halos black

Purchased:
Halos® Hexo Black | Extra Small

“I bought Halos® for my two sons who play football and rugby.

I was looking for protection for their developing brains as awareness grows around the long-term effects of repeated head impacts.

They find them comfortable, they stay in place, and they are proud to wear them.

Knowing I’m helping to reduce the impact on their brains gives me huge reassurance.”

Melissa Emson
Rezon Halos® Navy

Purchased:
Halos® Hexo Navy | XXS & XXXS

  1. Ten-man England survive Mexico comeback to reach quarter-finals. Reuters. 2026.
  2. Mexico 2–3 England: World Cup 2026 last 16 updates; as it happened. The Guardian. 2026.
  3. This is what’s on Raul Jimenez’s head while playing for Mexico at World Cup. Sporting News. 2026.
  4. Why is Raul Jimenez wearing a headband? Harrowing reason Mexico star wears protective gear. Daily Mirror. 2026.
  5. Update on Raul Jimenez. Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. 2021.
  6. “The doctors told me it was a miracle to still be there”. The Guardian. 2021.
  7. Jimenez planning to join up with Mexican national team. Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. 2021.
  8. Report: Leicester City 1–0 Wolves. Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. 2021.
  9. Predictors for traumatic brain injuries evaluated through accident reconstructions. Kleiven S. 2007.
  10. Office for Product Safety and Standards. Regulation 2016/425 and the Personal Protective Equipment (Enforcement) Regulations 2018: Great Britain. UK Government. 2025.
  11. Regulation (EU) 2016/425 of the European Parliament and of the Council; Annex I, Risk Categories of PPE.
  12. Law 4: The Players’ Equipment. The International Football Association Board.
  13. Robert Sánchez’s Rugby Headguard Exposes Football’s Brain Protection Problem. Further Reading. Rezon.
  14. Rezon Brain Protection Survey 2025. Further Reading. Rezon.
  15. The invisible brain injury risk in youth sport that every parent is missing. Further Reading. Rezon.
  16. Persistence of Hyper-Ramified Microglia in Porcine Cortical Gray Matter after a Single Closed-Head Rotational Acceleration Injury. Grovola MR, et al. 2023.
  17. Leveraging football accelerometer data to quantify associations between repetitive head impacts and chronic traumatic encephalopathy in males. Daneshvar DH, Nair ES, Baucom ZH, et al. Nature Communications. 2023.
  18. Repeated head trauma causes neuron loss and inflammation in young athletes. Butler MLMD, Pervaiz N, Breen K, et al. Nature. 2025.
  19. Neuropathologic and Clinical Findings in Young Contact Sport Athletes Exposed to Repetitive Head Impacts. McKee AC, Mez J, Abdolmohammadi B, et al. JAMA Neurology. 2023.
  20. Subconcussive Head Impact Exposure and White Matter Tract Changes over a Single Season of Youth Football. Bahrami N, Sharma D, Rosenthal S, et al. Radiology. 2016.
  21. Biomechanical investigation of head impacts in football. Withnall C, Shewchenko N, Gittens R, Dvorak J. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2005
  22. Soccer Headgear Ratings. Virginia Tech Helmet Lab.
  23. Football Head Protection for Concussion Risk; Rezon Halos®. Further Reading. Rezon.
  24. Brain Protection Technology for Sport. Further Reading. Rezon.
  25. EU Declaration of Conformity No. PPE359AT2023. Further Reading. Rezon.

Author: Judith McMinn

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Judith McMinn is the CEO and Founder of Rezon. She had identified something missing from sports. While traditional protective headwear focused on the head and skull, there was nothing effectively protecting the brain. So, she developed brain protection in sport, Halos®.

Read more articles by Judith McMinn

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