Dutch football player developed dementia from his sports career

Former professional football player Wout Holverda developed severe dementia due to his football career, specialists at Amsterdam UMC established after his death in December. They believe headers played a significant role in this. This is the first time such a strong connection is made between a Dutch footballer's sports career and dementia, NRC reports.

The Amsterdam UMC researchers studied Holverda's brain after his death. They found that he had CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy - a disease caused by repeated blows to the head. CTE has been linked to severe dementia, mood swings, and depression in people who played football, contact sports like ice hockey and American football, and combat sports.

Neurologist Jort Vijverberg called the findings "unique." He was able to rule out other causes than Holverda's sports career, he said to NRC. "We were able to see damage in his brain from recurrent blows to the head. In this case, Wout Holverda's football career is the reason for his illness." Headers - footballers hitting the ball with their heads - are the most apparent cause for the blows to his head, Vijverberg said.

Vijverberg said that more study is needed to determine whether certain players are more susceptible to this type of injury. It is also unclear whether other footballers - unknowingly - died of CTE. Worldwide, very few football players have permitted this post-mortem examination. "We hope that more football players are willing to donate their brains for research after their death. Only in this way can we answer important questions about the safety of headers and football."

Wout Holverda played for Sparta Rotterdam between 1978 and 1984, scoring over 50 goals. He played for Oranje once. "We now know that our dad died from the sport he loved most," his son Robin told NRC. "That's difficult, but we're glad it's clear now. I hope this research will eventually help us learn more about the danger of headers."

Football unions have long assumed that blows from headers or collisions cannot cause enough damage for developing things like CTE. NRC previously reported that sports associations like the European football association UEFA have actively slowed down research into brain injuries. In 2020, UEFA implemented a directive to make it more difficult for youth players to do headers during training. The United Kingdom banned headers for children and implemented an up to 10 per week limit for professional and amateur footballers of all ages.

Dutch football association KNVB hasn't implemented any bans or limitations on headers. The union's medics believe children should learn to head technically and carefully with soft balls so that they suffer less damage later in life, according to the newspaper.