I think it goes back a lot further than that, Wigan always seem to attract the "dark side"of the game to tip them over the line, if you remember Wigan signed the prop Smith knowing that he could,t get a gig in NRL because of his knees in the shoulder technique which resulted in lots of suspensions. So he pops over to the Wigan camp and sure enough puts young Stankevitch out of the game. They had a barren period in Superleague so up pops an Oz coach with a nasty side of tackling techniques to cause injury and took delight in putting up "car crash" pictures in the corridor of the training ground.
Then we have Wane with his anti anger management style which has most probably again contributed to a player having to retire from the game. The club encourage the "thugby" style, fortunately most clubs have not followed this philosophy to the same detail.

I think the terms we are looking for to describe Wigan are "The classlessness of desperation". That's what happened in the Grand Final.

All these sports are aware of this problem to some lesser of greater degree and have repeatedly blocked, hampered, stalled further investigation and litigation.

However, the NFL is a special case in that solid post-mortem data has found a "back door" through the NFL information firewall and into the hands of scientists. From this data it has been possible to establish a clear and unequivocal link between practicing the sport and brain injury.

As things stand the NFL - as we know it - is seriously threatened by a wave of class action lawsuits the costs of which are dizzying.

Moreover, even though similarly comprehensive data isn't available in relation to football and boxing it is now no longer possible for both to continue stonewalling official investigations indefinitely. One only need think of fighters such as Ali and Evander Holyfield to know boxing - AS WE KNOW IT - is living on borrowed time. Insofar as football is concerned, there have already been small-scale studies linking heading the ball repeatedly to brain damage. FIFA can only play the role of King Canute for so long.

I think football is very insignificant compared to "proper contact" sports, competing with a high ball perhaps. Think we can all remember the old rain sodden laced leather ball, now that was a concern when your neck went numb when the technique was wrong.

Again - the NFL studies show it's less an issue of force than FREQUENCY.

Given the number of headers a footballer makes in his career I suspect this could be a massive issue.

All you have to do is look at the collisions of either sport and it doesn't take a genius to work out that the speed and force of the collisions will have some sort of effect. It's not like the nfl are hiding this fact from the players, they choose to play the game knowing the force of collisions.

Don't mix up the normal collisions that go with the game, with a single act of thuggishness that ends a players career. This is a very different case

Danny Jones: Concussion first suspected before he collapsed www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/32584463

Danny Jones: Concussion first suspected before he collapsed www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/32584463

Actually, it IS like the NFL is hiding this fact.

Outside the US though I think a court is likely to take into account the generally physical nature of a sport in terms of assessing risk (outside the US I think this would end up in court - in the US the main aim of the claimants will probably be an out of court settlement). An RL player - just like a boxer - could not sensibly claim that they thought they were playing a sport that had no potentially serious physical risks associated with it. I can't imagine a UK court not taking that into serious account.

I think all the RFL/NRL have to do is what they have - stop the OTT stuff (particularly shoulder charges) and crack down on players with concussion returning to play. The problem with the shoulder charge in RL was that head shots were positively encouraged - no penalty, no suspension and even heaps of praise for hits which clearly hit opponents in the head.

BTW I think boxing isn't threatened at all. There's simply too much money at the top end for it to stop.

It'll certainly get to the US courts. And the NFL will likely be forced to concede in spades. At that point the starting pistol is fired. You'd think the British legal system would be an impermeable membrane to such claims (what this suggests about the merits of the British legal system is another question entirely). I equate the ever-expanding scope of liability claims to rain falling on a house. Even though quality of materials and methods of construction ostensibly preclude even the possibility of water getting inside, good ol' H20 will patiently go about its business of testing each and every seal in a dogged war of attrition until one of them fails. It could be tomorrow. It could be in twenty years. Eventually a gutter becomes blocked with leaves, a torrent of water gushes onto the second floor brickwork and three weeks later you've got damp in the bedroom.



I don't think that will be enough. Remember, one of the most shocking results of these studies is that tests carried out on kids found that a frightening number showed early symptoms of brain damage. These weren't the result of vicious head shots but rather an accumulation of thousands of small bangs and knocks picked up in everyday rough-and-tumble. Worse still - given that nearly 98% of players tested in one study manifested symptoms you can't really fall back on the "bad luck" argument. It's a near certainty that playing NFL will give you brain damage of some description. That's a very tough position to defend.



Don't let the silly money thrown at that joke of a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao fool you. Boxing through wholesale corruption and criminal mismanagement is practically on its knees as a professional sport and of all those listed it is undoubtedly in the weakest position to survive intact from any kind of legal challenge.

Boxing on its knees? You taking the pi**. Boxing just had the biggest fight of the decade and possibly all time. British boxing just had its biggest fight of all time in froch v groves 2.

British boxing is as good as its been for many years. Kell brook is world champion alongside Carl Froch, Scott Quigg Andy lee , McDonnell, and Carl Frampton. We have groves, Degale, Paul smith, kal yafai, tyson fury, ricky burns, kevin Mitchell all in world title fights this year. Paul smith who part of the smith brothers has a title against pound for pound one the best boxers about in Andre Ward. Amir Khan at welterwieght looks truly world class and looks set for mid September fight with floyd "money" mayweather. Moving up to 147lbs has been great move for Khan. Our own Martin murray will be looking to bounce back from his world title shot with GGG who is the deadliest puncher in world boxing.

The yanks have just had their first heavyweight champ in ten years with wilder sweeping thru the ranks with 32 fights and 32 wins and 31 by ko.

The is some massive massive fights to me made. Boxing is booming over the last two years and British boxing has some big fights that can be made.

Groves v Degale
Frampton v Quigg
Price v Joshua.
Khan v brook
Murray v Andy lee
Callum smith v rocky fielding
St Pete v mugwamp