World Rugby’s Legal Defence Fails to Protect the Current Generation of Players
World Rugby has now filed its legal defence in response to the concussion lawsuit brought by nearly 800 former amateur and professional players in the United Kingdom.
At its core, the defence argues that there was no material scientific evidence, at the relevant time, linking repetitive head impacts, including sub-concussive impacts, to long-term neurological harm [1].
This position does more than attempt to limit liability for past action. It highlights an ongoing failure to engage with the current and emerging science of brain injury risk in sport.
If repetitive small force head impacts carry neurodegenerative risk, then the only responsible course of action is to reduce that risk wherever possible. Yet World Rugby’s current equipment regulations on headgear do not do that.
World Rugby Regulations Continue to Limit Brain Protection
World Rugby Regulation 12 governs what protective headgear is permitted to be worn in competition. Approved World Rugby scrum caps are designed to reduce only superficial injuries such as cuts and abrasions. They are not assessed, tested or approved for their ability to reduce rotational forces transmitted to the brain.
Rotational acceleration has consistently been identified, over decades, as the primary biomechanical driver of brain injury in both concussive and sub-concussive impacts through its shearing effect on neuronal structures and blood vessels [2,3].
Equipment designed specifically to reduce rotational forces is not currently recognised within the approved World Rugby framework.
While World Rugby has developed a trial process to enable the assessment of rugby headgear which, ‘according to the manufacturers have been designed to achieve specific, quantifiable medical purposes’ [4]. This specification uses World Rugby Regulation 12 (that headgear is not intended nor expected to protect against any form of mild traumatic brain injury or skull fractures) as a base specification with variations which do not increase the onerousness of the tests, or the requirements from Regulation 12. This means it does not really research or trial any higher levels of protection.
This creates a clear contradiction.
On one hand, World Rugby’s legal defence acknowledges the potential neurological relevance of repetitive head impacts. On the other hand, its regulatory position limits player access and choice to protective equipment designed to mitigate the very mechanism of brain injury now under scrutiny.
In doing so, it moves beyond historic liability into present-day risk management.
For a deeper explanation of why governing body approval should not be mistaken for brain protection, read our guide to the difference between match permission, CE/UKCA PPE compliance and brain protection performance.
Sub-Concussions Are Not Theoretical
Brain injury in sport is not primarily driven by one big hit. It is driven by repetitive exposure to smaller force impacts that produce no signs or symptoms of concussion. These are sub-concussions.
Sub-concussive impacts occur hundreds of times more frequently than diagnosed concussions and are understood to drive cumulative neurological damage over time [5].
Each head impact involves rotational forces that cause the brain to rotate within the skull. This 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 neuro-inflammation [3].
Neuro-inflammation is a recognised pathological feature in neuro-degenerative diseases including, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), Motor Neurone Disease (MND), and Parkinson’s disease [6].
As leading neuroradiologist Dr Emer MacSweeney explains in her TEDx talk on CTE, this condition develops through cumulative exposure to repeated smaller-force head impacts, sub-concussions, not through concussions.
The risk and severity of CTE is not caused primarily by single big-hit concussions, but by multiple smaller sub-concussive blows to the head and body. Failure to grasp this critical discovery is too common, and presents a huge issue in understanding how to tackle CTE.
Dr Emer MacSweeney – CTE: The silent killer in contact sports | TEDxAthens [7]
Risk Starts Long Before The Professional Game
Risk from cumulative head impacts does not begin in elite competition or adulthood. It begins in youth (club and school) training sessions, in contact drills, and in repeated collisions that never result in concussion diagnosis or removal from play.
Brain development continues into early adulthood, with axonal myelination and neural network maturation ongoing into the third decade of life, increasing vulnerability to mechanical injury during childhood and adolescence [8].
Female athletes are also at increased risk of concussion and prolonged recovery due to differences in brain microstructure, neck strength and hormonal influences [9].
Brain injury risk exists in training, matches, schools and community sport across all levels of participation.
Waiting for symptoms is reactive. Waiting for rule change is avoidable.
Protection Cannot Wait For Permission
In the United Kingdom and Europe, CE and UKCA certified protective equipment is legally recognised under Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) law.
PPE law sits above sporting federation equipment regulations.
Players, parents, coaches, schools and clubs therefore have both the right and increasingly the responsibility to reduce cumulative brain injury risk wherever repeated head impacts occur.
That includes training environments and all contact or collision sports where head impact risk is present.
Reducing rotational acceleration has been shown to reduce axonal strain and the associated mechanical forces that contribute to neurodegenerative risk [10].
Rezon Halos® is intentionally engineered to reduce the transmission of these forces to the brain.
Independent biomechanical testing has demonstrated:
- At least 60% reduction in rotational force transmission
- 74% percent reduction in concussion risk
- Rezon Halos® is the only non-helmeted head protection to have achieved both a 5-Star Virginia Tech rating and CE / UKCA Category II PPE safety certification.
WR approved scrum caps presented as protective and tested under the same Virginia Tech Helmet Lab STAR methodology reduce rotational forces by a much lower average of 34 percent.
An ever increasing proportion of parents, players and coaches are now choosing to take brain protection into their own hands. Rezon Halos® is now worn across 19 sports and in 33 countries.
Learn more about advances in brain protection here: Brain Injuries in Rugby.
Time To Wake Up
World Rugby’s legal defence will have to convince the court that repetitive head impacts may not be linked to long-term neurological harm. That is a hard argument to present.
The mechanisms of injury are now better understood. Rotational forces and cumulative sub-concussive impacts drive neuro-inflammation, and are a key pathological feature in neuro-degenerative conditions including CTE, MND and Parkinson’s disease [5,6].
The risk is cumulative.
The exposure starts in childhood.
And the consequences can emerge decades later.
Sport can no longer claim ignorance to brain injury.
Continuing to focus solely on concussion management while limiting access to protective equipment is no longer defensible. It does not protect the current or next generation of players. It perpetuates the very risks now being contested in court.
We already know what damages the brain.
We already know how to mitigate damage with better protection .
And we now know what will continue if we fail to act.
Brain protection in training, drills, matches, and wherever there is risk of head impact is no longer optional. It is an essential choice every player and parent should have.
- World Rugby denies liability in defence to ex-players’ UK concussion lawsuit. Reuters.
- Role of subconcussion in repetitive mild traumatic brain injury. Bailes, Petraglia, Omalu, Nauman, Talavage. 2013
- Diffuse axonal injury and traumatic coma in the primate. Gennarelli, Thibault, Adams, Graham, Thompson, Marcincin. 1982.
- Brain injuries in Rugby. Further Reading. Rezon.
- Brain. McKee et al. 2013.
- Brain injuries in youth sport. Further Reading. Rezon.
- CTE: The silent killer in contact sports. Dr Emer MacSweeney. TEDx Athens.
- Longitudinal development of human brain wiring continues from childhood into adulthood. Lebel, Beaulieu. 2011
- Association of Sex With Adolescent Soccer Concussion Incidence and Characteristics. Bretzin, Covassin, Wiebe, Stewart. 2021.
- Predictors for traumatic brain injuries evaluated through accident reconstructions. Kleiven. 2007.
Author: Judith McMinn
