THE case has been ongoing for almost two years but a few weeks ago, the concussion lawsuit brought against the NFL by over 4500 former players came closer to reaching a settlement.

These former players are looking for compensation from the league for brain injuries that were incurred playing American football. A year ago, the judge handling the case rejected the first proposed settlement because she was unsure that there would be enough money to cover all of the players with potential claims. Last month, she ordered five further minor changes to the settlement bringing final approval a big step closer. So far, the settlement is at $765m but this pay-out may still rise further.

The concussion debate has been raging on this side of the Atlantic in recent weeks too. In the Six Nations match between England and Wales last month, Wales' George North remained on the field despite taking two serious knocks to the head and appearing to be momentarily knocked out. The decision to allow North to play on was universally condemned.

The most worrying part of North's story is that his case is not an exception. It may be unusual for a professional player to be knocked out in such a high-profile match and for it not to be spotted by his medical team but rugby players suffer concussion on an all too regular basis. 

At the 4th International Conference on Concussion in Sport, held in Zurich in November 2012, a consensus paper measured incidences of concussion per 1,000 playing hours. It found that boxing averaged 17 cases, professional rugby averaged 10.5 and the NFL averaged just five. Horse racing had the highest count of 25. 

There is little doubt that rugby is taking the issue of concussion and its consequences far more seriously than it has in the past but for some, still more could be done. John Beattie was capped 25 times for Scotland and is a former British Lion and believes that more money must be invested in researching what exactly the effects of concussion are. "I think there needs to be some properly controlled trials and monitoring of players in a whole range of sports", he says. "I think there's got to be a good bit of money spent on this now and I believe that we need some proper research. No mother is going to allow her child to take part in rugby or football or boxing if it were to be proved that you're setting yourself up for early-onset dementia."

 

The NFL, one of the richest sports leagues in the world, has tiptoed around gathering more information on the issue. League officials had touted the idea of using sensors in players helmets to gather information about head hits in order to gain a better understanding about concussions but the pilot programme has been temporarily suspended.

Beattie's son, Johnnie, also plays rugby for Scotland and the former No.8 admits that he does not enjoy watching his son play. "I really don't like watching him play any more", he says. "Rugby's a brilliant game but when I saw George North being concussed, I felt physically sick. And when Mike Brown, the English full-back got knocked out, I switched the telly off."

Beattie will donate his brain to medical science when he dies in an attempt to aid research into sport-related brain injuries. The 57-year-old can clearly remember having vision disturbance in the aftermath of games, his vision narrowing like tunnel-vision. In post-mortem examinations of NFL players, 76 out of the 79 brains looked at were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated trauma to the head.

The dilemma however, is who should make the ultimate decision as to what the response to a head knock should be although Beattie is clear on who should not be consulted. "It cannot be left to the player," he says emphatically. "The last person you can trust is the player - it has to be a proactive decision which comes down to the doctors. You absolutely cannot leave it to the players because they will want to play on."

Rule changes within rugby have been mooted and Beattie has heard murmurings that talks have already begun about outlawing head contact within the game. He admits though, that it would be extremely difficult to police. Beattie believes that at elite level at least, the game must change to protect its players but he seems sure that, even with alterations to the rules of the game, Britain is likely to see similar legal cases to that in the NFL in America.

"There's bound to be major litigious cases in the future. I don't know about the rights and wrongs of that, but it's sure to happen," he says. "Players are going to say, 'wait a minute, you allowed me to play on when I was concussed. I believe that it's going to be the next big thing in sport."

Beattie may be right and the changes will undoubtedly improve the safety of the sport. It may come too late for some, though.