Paul Wade’s warning leaves Football Australia with nowhere to hide on heading

Long before he became boss of the Australian players’ union, Beau Busch was a centre-back – which means one of his primary responsibilities as a player was to strategically position his head to intercept an object travelling at high speed. Repeatedly.

As with many former footballers, but particularly those who were strong in the air, Busch sometimes wonders if by clearing danger for his teams so often, he will one day find himself in it, like former Socceroos captain Paul Wade.

“I played in a position where my strength really was heading and tackling. It certainly wasn’t ball-playing,” said Busch, the chief executive of Professional Footballers Australia, which helped manage Wade’s announcement.

“Having played in the UK for a couple of years, and the amount of time the ball spent in the air in Scotland … it’s absolutely a concern. It’s something of huge concern to all players.”

The discussion around the progressive degenerative brain disease CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in soccer, and its links with the fundamental skill of heading, is far from new.

After every new piece of research from abroad, every innovation around equipment designed to reduce the dangers, every high-profile English player’s death and the discovery of CTE, the subject is raised in Australia, the relevant authorities are questioned, a generic, non-committal response is provided, and everyone moves on until the next time it pops up. This has been the cycle for the past five or six years.

But this time, it’s different. What could once be dismissed as an abstract problem that only happened in other countries is no longer the case. Wade’s diagnosis of probable CTE – the disease can only be confirmed with a post-mortem examination – brings the discussion not only to Australian soccer’s doorstep, but inside the house. It’s here now. What are we going to do about it?

Wade, a long-time former Socceroos captain and a face of the sport for so many Australians because of his post-retirement media career, did not go public with his story for sympathy. He wants action.

He has seen what other countries have done. In 2015, the United States became the first nation to impose restrictions on heading in training and matches for children up to the age of 12 after a legal settlement. England has since followed suit; from the 2026-27 season, deliberate heading is being phased out at under-11s level across all leagues, clubs and any affiliated school matches, and throw-ins have been replaced by pass-ins – rules that have been phased in for younger ages during recent years.

In both nations, in line with a successful trial by lawmakers the International Football Association Board (IFAB), deliberate headers are punished with a free kick. From under-12s onwards, heading is gradually introduced into the game, but in England, at professional level, there is also formal guidance that players should be exposed to a maximum of 10 high-force headers at training a week, although it’s questionable how many teams actually adhere to that.

Since the evidence indicates that prolonged exposure to repetitive heading increases the risk of CTE, the logical response is to simply reduce the window of exposure, and hopefully reduce the risk.

Nobody wants to see the header eradicated entirely; especially us as Australians, given how many of our greatest moments in the game have come off the head of players such as Sam Kerr, Tim Cahill and others. But for now, these are seen as the best available measures, and several countries have adopted them.

But not yet Australia, for reasons unknown.

Wade, like Rowena Mobbs, the neurologist who diagnosed him, wants Football Australia to fall in line.

“For those who are making the rules, or should be applying the protocols, do it – do it now,” she said.

Those words may be Wade’s lasting legacy – but only if they are heeded.

FA does not want to be part of the latest round of discussions, at least not publicly. FA did not make any of its executives available for interview to discuss Wade’s diagnosis and its position on heading. Nor would it answer this masthead’s specific questions on those matters. It has never publicly explained what additional evidence it is waiting for, or if it is waiting for anything, before adopting the restrictions that have been implemented elsewhere.

The national governing body only provided a brief statement, attributed to a spokesperson. It described Wade as a “true icon of Australian football” and said FA had reached out to him directly, but otherwise, it repeated the same things it has said previously.

“We continue to work closely with medical and other experts on policies to protect and improve players’ health and safety, and to ensure that our game is safe to play,” the spokesperson said. “Additionally, we will continue working closely with PFA and other key stakeholders to ensure our sport remains safe, healthy, and accessible for future generations.”

But the experts, and the PFA, are unequivocal. They say there is already enough evidence to act. What they cannot get their heads around is the delay.

Neurologist Alan Pearce, one of Australia’s leading concussion researchers, says there is no scientific, practical or logical reason for FA to wait any longer.

“There’s absolutely no reason why they can’t apply the precautionary principle and then enforce this,” he said.

“We are seeing cases across the United Kingdom … I don’t understand why we have to have a study to make sure it’s not different here in Australia. It’s the same sport. Repetitive impacts to the brain, it doesn’t matter where they come from – what we are seeing in the science is that they are a risk factor for CTE and other neurodegenerative diseases as well.”

Pearce said scientists had spent close to two decades warning sporting bodies about the possible consequences of repeated sub-concussive impacts to the brain, often without any meaningful response.

“We feel like we’re screaming into the void,” he said.

“It does seem to take a high-profile athlete for people to actually sit up and go, ‘Oh, this must be serious.’ But for every one professional or elite player, there are thousands and thousands of club players doing everything the same that no one hears about.”

FA’s concussion guidelines for community soccer make no reference to heading. Instead, they deal with the management of diagnosed concussions. It’s important guidance, but does not address what doctors believe caused Wade’s likely condition: the cumulative effect of thousands of sub-concussive blows from heading the ball. They don’t hurt, which is what is so insidious about them, but they all add up.

“That’s part of the strategy – not just from Football Australia, but this is from the AFL, the NRL, World Rugby, whatever,” Pearce said.

“Every time that we talk about or reveal a case of CTE, they always pivot back to concussion. This is why there’s so much confusion because people think that concussion is CTE. That’s got nothing to do with Paul’s case.”

Busch said FA was viewing the problem from the wrong angle.

“The game should act now,” he said. “What it needs to move from is a reactive approach focused on effectively trying to manage the media and the communications or its image, and actually have an incredibly proactive approach of learning from what has worked around the world.

“There’s no examples around the world where sport has proactively worked to safeguard the health and safety of athletes and then, in hindsight, they’ve been shown to have overreacted.

“It’s time to move from simply talking about these issues and effectively admiring the problems in some way … and that means actually working on these policies now, committing to making sure that Australian football is the nation’s safest sport.

“The only thing holding it back is the will to be able to put these best practices into place.”