You may, sadly, be right. A club truly concerned about player welfare would be hypocritical to withhold the data. Concerned players (or League13) might still submit an FOI request, but I don't know if it would get anywhere. The cynic in me suggests it might not - the defence of "we incompetently lost it" would all too plausible

FOI is fine but the DPA would override this.

The Data Protection Act 1998 also covers the rules regarding use of "sensitive personal data"; that is data that consists of information about an employee's:
racial or ethnic origins;
political opinions;
religious beliefs;
trade union membership (or non-membership);
physical or mental health or condition;
sex life or sexual orientation;
criminal (or alleged criminal) activities; or
criminal proceedings, criminal convictions (or any sentences imposed by the courts).

Sensitive personal data must not be held on a personnel file without the employees express consent - unless held to comply with an employer's legal obligations. This data may also be retained for so long as may be necessary for the original purpose.

is the only exemption I see being relevant. If the player asks for their own information, the DPA would require the club to hand over the data (by my understanding). If the data is not health data but instead [iperformance[/i data, I wonder how that might be interpreted.

To answer Mugwump's original question: looks like [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/32525472tonight[/url.

Bizarre, did Mugwump know about this?

Any possibility he'll take action against anyone? Flower even? Or am I reading too much into it? If he didn't have symptoms before the GF and does now it looks bad.

They would have to show a causal link between that incident and the symptoms he is suffering from now. It could be tricky.

Why? He'd no doubt have medical records showing he was fine before and medical records showing he was injured afterwards. He would surely have gone for assessment after the Grand Final as a precaution as well, which would state the injuries evident at the time. I'm not saying he would persue Flower/SL/Wigan/Saints/RL, but it does seem plausible.

He's spent 13 years as a professional in the premier collision sport on the planet. Demonstrating that Flower's punches were what caused his condition is likely to be difficult.

Where there's blame, there's a claim. If I was Flower, or Wigan, I would be very worried, this is going to hang over them for years. I would also suggest that the big money lawyers will have Wane in their sights. The bad news for them is that Lance is retiring to the U.S., he is going to be bombarded by ambulance chasers, particularly on the back of the NFL cases.

The original post is the issue though. All the evidence I've seen points to the problem being due to cumulative effects rather than one-offs. IIRC smaller knocks can be the worst, because players won't necessarily show any symptoms but have suffered bruising/swelling of the brain. As a result they aren't taken off the field as they nowadays are when clearly concussed, and take more hits to an already bruised brain.

As an aside, this is the sole reason why shoulder charges were banned. RL would indeed have found itself in deep legal poop if the sport continued to not just condone but glorify shoulder charges. The NRL saw the future issues arising from the NFL and banned shoulder charges almost overnight as a result.

You can defend your sport being tough, contact etc and that players are aware of general physical danger. But if the prosecution for an ex-player (or even worse a whole bunch of them) cracked open a highlights reel of RL shoulder charge 'big hits' together with commentators having verbal orgasms, crowds cheering' the 'tackling' player being high-fived by teammates whilst his opponent is either unconscious or staggering around on jelly legs and the ref waving play on, it would be pretty hard to explain to a court (most likely not containing RL fans) how the sport had really fulfilled its duty of care to players.

Legal teams are a bit smarter these days, medical evidence and player intent to injure are taken on board in a more serious manner.
I,m sure the Smith v Stankavitch case or the Newton v Long assault would have had a different outcome if it was dealt with today.