Revealed: 35 players with brain trauma

An explosive submission to the Senate inquiry into concussion, has named AFL players affected by brain injuries and allegations the governing body has not done enough to protect them.

Daniel Venables playing for the West Coast Eagles in 2019

Veteran sports agent and concussion campaigner Peter Jess has released an explosive cache of documents, including a list of 35 AFL footballers who have retired because of brain trauma since 2009 and 13 letters to the AFL pleading for the game to be safer.

On Wednesday, Jess submitted more than 150 pages of documents to the Senate inquiry into head injuries in sport. He included nine letters addressed directly to AFL Commission chair-man Richard Goyder.

Jess says he has never received a response from Goyder.

“Not one letter back,” Jess told The Australian.

In his first letter to Goyder in February 2019, he warned that the AFL’s then concussion adviser Paul McCrory’s views were “dangerous to current and past players neurological health”, and said he downplayed the long-term damage from concussions.

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On Jess’s list of 35 footballers is former West Coast Eagle Daniel Venables, who suffered seven brain bleeds following a marking contest in May 2019. McCrory allegedly told Venables to “do nothing” after the concussion against Melbourne, before the player, 19 at the time, was prescribed antidepressants.

McCrory was later exposed for plagiarism and manufacturing research to downplay the negative impact of repetitive concussions.

In a statement, the AFL said it was in regular correspondence with Jess, saying it was constantly working to strengthen its concussion protocols.

The statement said the AFL chairman, the AFL chief executive and AFL executives received extensive and regular correspondence from Jess on a range of matters, and that they delegated AFL senior managers, who were dedicated to looking after concussion issues, to respond to the player manager.

“(They have the) responsibility of responding to the correspondence and phone calls with Mr Jess on those matters, which regularly sees them speaking to Mr Jess numerous times a week,” the statement read.

“The AFL has made more than 30 changes to concussion protocols, tribunal guidelines and on-field rules over the past two decades to further protect the head and improve the response to head-knocks in our game in accordance with current and evolving science and currently employ three people specifically to work on brain-health initiatives, including working to develop a longitudinal research study.” (read the full statement from the AFL below)

However, in his submission, Jess claimed the AFL had “ignored and/or failed” to respond either adequately or at all to warnings that players were being exposed to risks to their health and safety. “Warnings from historic experiences within the AFL, such as the neurological impairments to players who had to retire from the accumulated impact of clinical and sub-clinical concussions such as Daniel Venables, Justin Koschitze, Matt Maguire, Sam Blease, Sam Rowe, Koby Stevens, Kade Kolodjashnij, Jack Frost and many others that the AFL/AFLPA have a record from accessing career-ending payments,” Jess said.

In the submission, Jess has called for an overhaul of the “inept” concussion protocols, saying the AFL should heed medical advice and bench players for at least 30 days. He also called for annual brain scans for footballers. He claims current science has been ignored by the AFL, and the protocols have failed current and former AFL footballers, as well as pointing to the suicides of Danny Frawley and Shane Tuck, both who were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Jess claims that CTE, which has been linked to repetitive head-knocks, is an “industrial disease by definition because it is created by an unsafe workplace”.

“The level of TBIs (traumatic brain injuries) in the past players simply confirms the current system has failed, and without the modifications outlined, will continue to fail,” Jess writes.

“This situation is totally unacceptable, given that the medical and scientific rapid point of care diagnostic tools are available but not implemented by the AFL.

“The cost to the participants and their families is incalculable from a humanitarian and financial point of view. This then flows on as a community cost.

“The cynicism of the statement regarding the Return to Play Protocols and a safe workplace to the AFL Clubs masquerading as optimism in the current system is dangerous to the playing cohort.”

He has implored the governing body to implement brain scans at the start of every season.

“The AFL must introduce this regime of constant testing and scanning of the brain to protect participants,” he writes.

Jess has been vocal that the AFL’s current concussion protocols are lagging behind world’s best practice.

Jess says the current science and medicine are being ignored, pointing to Oxford University data that reviewed 15,000 participants in collision sports and found that the brain was unlikely to recover in under 30 days.

“The ongoing risks of AFL to create neurological impairments was highlighted again in the 2021 Season with Brad Sheppard concussed in Round 12,” Jess writes. “Sheppard returned to play 19 days later and received another concussion which was career ending at the age of 30 by not following safe Return to Play Protocols.”

“Whilst the AFL consistently advocates it has adopted world’s best practice in return-to-play protocols based on the concussion in sport consensus statement, the medical and scientific basis for that position has been deconstructed by multiple medical and scientific studies that show from objective biomarkers that the brain does not heal in under 30 days after a clinical concussion.”

Jess claims that in 2021, “of the 104 concussions, 84 per cent of the concussed players returned in under the 30-day benchmark. Six players returned under the mandatory 12-day stand-down period now mandated by the AFL”. He also claims his client Venables, whose 2019 brain trauma cost the footballer his career, was not subjected to the AFL’s protocols with his injury.

“In 2019, Daniel Venables was left in the footy sheds without the proper protocols to confirm the extent of damage,” Jess said. “It is clear he would have failed the Glasgow Coma Scale, and should have been taken to the emergency ward of the nearest hospital if the proper AFL protocols were followed. Instead of being taken to the emergency, his partner drove him home. He then returned to the emergency complaining he felt like his brain was going to explode. Venables at 19 was referred to the AFL concussion adviser Paul McCrory, who then told him it was more likely to be a problem with neck and did not do any intensive follow ups to understand the structural integrity of his brain. “McCrory prescribed a regime of medication that was mood-modulating rather than understanding the core issue of the problem, which was brain damage. ”

The league commissioned a report into McCrory and said it apologised to past players. “to the past players who gave up their time in the hope of better understanding their own conditions and to assist with the research for the benefit of current and future players and were let down by the manner in which some of the research and clinical programs were at times conducted.”

Additionally, the panel found instances of plagiarism from McCrory “do not affect or taint the work” he had undertaken for the league, “in large part because they do not involve the falsification or fabrication of relevant research.”

Jess said he made the submission in the hope that the AFL will take action in this space and will develop a system of independent assessment for compensation outside the confines of the AFL.

The AFL is great at putting on an event but it is very bad at looking after the health and welfare of its past player cohort,” he said.

“The UK parliamentary Committee found there should be a segregation between national sports organisation and the welfare of its playing cohort. It is completely conflicted.”

“I want accountability. These issues are preventable if the proper concussion prevention and mitigation programs are implemented across the sport.”

In a number of letters to the AFL, Jess says it is players‘ partners who suffer the most as their loved ones succumb to dementia and other effects of brain trauma. He said over Christmas he had the loved ones of three former AFL footballers on the phone to him.

“Over the Christmas break I was getting phone calls from wives and partners, saying that their ex-footballer husband or partner were talking about taking their own lives,” Jess said.

“This is a community health crisis of epidemic proportions.”

“We need to do better.”

FULL AFL STATEMENT RESPONDING TO PETER JESS’ ALLEGATIONS

The health and safety of players at all levels of the game is the AFL’s key priority and the AFL take concussion and the protection of the brain health of all those playing our game extremely seriously.

The AFL Chairman, the AFL CEO and AFL Executives receive extensive and regular correspondence from Mr Jess on a range of matters and delegate senior managers within the AFL who are responsible for overseeing the AFL’s extensive response to concussion with the responsibility of responding to the correspondence and phone calls with Mr Jess on those matters which regularly sees them speaking to Mr Jess numerous times a week.

The AFL has made more than 30 changes to concussion protocols, tribunal guidelines and on-field rules over the past two decades to further protect the head and improve the response to head knocks in our game in accordance with current and evolving science and currently employ three people specifically to work on brain health initiatives, including working to develop a longitudinal research study.

We continue to strengthen protocols and the education of clubs and players as to why we treat this issue so seriously and in 2021 we built on our conservative return to play protocol that focuses on individualised assessment and management, involving a brief period of relative rest, a period of recovery and a graded return to full contact by introducing a minimum recovery and rehabilitation period following a diagnosed concussion. This protocol is part of a mandatory 11-step, minimum 12-day post-concussion recovery and rehabilitation period for all levels of Australian Football.

An AFL delegation attended the 6th International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport, held in Amsterdam in October last year and the international expert panel from the Conference is in the process of drafting a consensus statement based on concussion papers submitted from academics across the world which is expected to be delivered sometime this year. The AFL will continue to use the Consensus statement to inform further work into concussion management and, as we have previously said publicly, are also working closely with Gordon Legal to consider options for the introduction of an expanded financial assistance scheme for former AFL and AFLW players who suffered a serious injury with long-term consequences and financial need.