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LOTG Response to FIFAB and RFU announcements

Love of the Game’s mission is to protect our players and protect our sports. Concussions will continue in many sports and Love of the Game will always raise awareness of existing solutions and opportunities for the management of concussion injuries while constantly promoting the development, trial and roll out of innovative solutions to minimize consequences of concussion injuries while reducing safe recovery time. 

Love of the Game is always supportive of changes that increment protection without changing the fundamentals of the sport. In order to protect both players and sports, we are focused on ensuring that any changes are evidence-based and well considered.

We look forward to understanding the reasoning behind the recently announced changes to the laws of tackling in community rugby and will always urge that changes are only made where there is well founded evidence.

Following Wednesday’s meeting of the International Football Association Board, as always, Love of the Game looks forward to studying available evidence to understand the underlying law changes.

We understand that there will always be some risk of concussion in any physical activity, sporting or otherwise.

We share the belief that football must quickly, consistently, and reliably identify concussions when they happen. The pressures on medical staff, particularly in professional sporting environments cannot be overstated. Whilst there is no current multinational consensus on the correct approach to temporary substitutions for suspected concussions in football, and whilst we recognize the complexity of the issue, it must be addressed based on evidence and the player welfare whether they be school and grass roots participants, professionals, or elite players.

Love of the Game Founder takes part in Parliamentary Roundtable

Love of the Game Founder & Chair Laurence Geller was recently invited to take part in an important Parliamentary roundtable on concussion in sports.

Hosted by Chris Bryant MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Acquired Brain Injuries, the session brought together leading industry stakeholders and parliamentarians to coordinate research, policy, and guidelines.

Laurence, attending as the Government’s Independent Ministerial Adviser on Concussion and LOTG Chairman provided the session with valuable insight into the work of DCMS and the industry in creating a new framework to safeguard players and sports.

This roundtable represents an important step in the coordination of policy and legislation, and the latest developments and findings of the sports field’s cutting edge.

A further session has already been scheduled for early 2023 following the success of this opening event.

Laurence Geller said:

“I was delighted to be able to attend this important session, and to share the learnings and findings of our work with those at the centre of this policy field. I look forward to continuing to represent Love of the Game on this stage, and furthering the cause of protecting our players, and our grassroots sports”

Laurence Geller sitting around table with others
Prof Mike Parker conducts a WAVi scan with Jess Drage, filmed for BBC News

Love of the Game Founder takes part in Parliamentary Roundtable

Love of the Game Founder & Chair Laurence Geller was recently invited to take part in an important Parliamentary roundtable on concussion in sports.

Hosted by Chris Bryant MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Acquired Brain Injuries, the session brought together leading industry stakeholders and parliamentarians to coordinate research, policy, and guidelines.

Laurence, attending as the Government’s Independent Ministerial Adviser on Concussion and LOTG Chairman provided the session with valuable insight into the work of DCMS and the industry in creating a new framework to safeguard players and sports.

This roundtable represents an important step in the coordination of policy and legislation, and the latest developments and findings of the sports field’s cutting edge.

A further session has already been scheduled for early 2023 following the success of this opening event.

Laurence Geller said:

“I was delighted to be able to attend this important session, and to share the learnings and findings of our work with those at the centre of this policy field. I look forward to continuing to represent Love of the Game on this stage, and furthering the cause of protecting our players, and our grassroots sports”

Radio 4’s Today Programme speaks to LOTG Founders

Simon Shaw and Sally Pettipher on LOTG’s tech trials

Listen at 1:35:43 to LOTG Chairman Simon Shaw and Co-Founder Sally Pettipher

“We want our children to be able to play”

Simon Shaw MBE, President, Love of the Game

On May 2nd 2022, on the back of the BBC News report on the Love of the Game WAVi scanner trials, President Simon Shaw and Co-Founder Sally Pettipher were interviewed for six minutes on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.

Catch up with the recording HERE at timecheck 1:35:43

BBC Health Correspondent, Hugh Pym, with LOTG Chairman, Laurence Geller CBE

Earlier in the morning, LOTG Chairman, Laurence Geller, who is also the DCMS Ministerial Adviser on Concussion in Sport, was featured on BBC News discussing the importance of the Government’s work on concussion protocols and LOTG’s work on tech development to mitigate risks of short and long term damage across all sports and all ages.

Peter Rogers, Former Wales International Rugby Player and LOTG supporter

The BBC News coverage was supported by former Welsh Rugby Prop, Peter Rogers, speaking from the BBC Studio in Cardiff. Following his rugby career, Peter went on to study a Masters in Dementia Care at the University of West London. A course founded and funded by UWL Chancellor, and LOTG Chairman, Laurence Geller CBE.

About Love of the Game

Love of the Game is a campaign which seeks to reduce concussion-related issues arising from contact and non-contact sports. LOTG takes a solutions-based approach to developing new technologies that prevent, diagnose and treat head injuries in sport. The Love of the Game aims to reduce risk of early onset dementia to players, maintain sports as we know and love them, lengthen sporting careers and reduce the fear of taking part. We are an impassioned community of athletes, players, fans, innovators and experts, united by our love of sport and the desire to, not only protect players of all ages from the potentially devastating impact of head injuries, but also to protect the integrity of the sports we know and love. 

Media contacts

Harriet Newton
h.newton@hawthornadvisors.com       

BBC News highlights LOTG tech trials

WAVi kit filmed pre-trial

“Pitch-side brain scans aim to make sports safer”

BBC News Headline 02 May 2022

On May 2nd 2022, Love of the Game demonstrated how the WAVi brain scanner might be a valuable diagnostic aid for concussion severity.

LOTG is funding UK Trials which will be run at three rugby clubs, one professional: Cornish Pirates, and two grassroots: East London and Sevenoaks.

BBC Health Correspondent, Hugh Pym, caught up with Professor Mike Parker and LOTG Chairman, Laurence Geller to learn how this technology, and others like it, might inform safer return-to-play.

Filming took place with Actonians Women’s Footballers, one of whom, Jess Drage, was filmed being scanned. Real data was instantly available to assure her that her brain function was normal.

Prof Mike Parker conducts a WAVi scan with Jess Drage, filmed for BBC News

The Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), whose Ministerial Adviser is LOTG Chairman, Laurence Geller, recently announced its convening of expert panels to work towards common protocols in concussion management across all sports at all ages and levels of play. Work which LOTG applauds.

About Love of the Game

Love of the Game is a campaign which seeks to reduce concussion-related issues arising from contact and non-contact sports. LOTG takes a solutions-based approach to developing new technologies that prevent, diagnose and treat head injuries in sport. The Love of the Game aims to reduce risk of early onset dementia to players, maintain sports as we know and love them, lengthen sporting careers and reduce the fear of taking part. We are an impassioned community of athletes, players, fans, innovators and experts, united by our love of sport and the desire to, not only protect players of all ages from the potentially devastating impact of head injuries, but also to protect the integrity of the sports we know and love. 

Media contacts

Harriet Newton
h.newton@hawthornadvisors.com       

Government and Love of the Game in action against concussion

The UK Government has issued a detailed action plan to deal with Concussion in Sport. Love of the Game (LOTG) and our Chairman, Laurence Geller, are integral to planning and delivery.

This comes in response to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Select Committee earlier this year.

LOTG President Simon Shaw was interviewed by DCMS in advance of the Govt launch : “What is the point in waiting?”

See the full report here: Government response to DCMS Select Committee Report on Concussion in Sport

See an overview and interviews with Simon Shaw and Laurence Geller here: Summary

We are really pleased to be working with Government to identify technology that could mitigate concussion in sport

Simon Shaw MBE, President, LOTG

Laurence Geller CBE, UK government independent concussion advisor and chairman of Love of the Game said:

“All of us recognise the importance of sport in our lives. Whether professional or amateur, whatever age or skill level, we want to enjoy our sports whilst being protected from the potentially life changing impacts of head injuries; I therefore warmly welcome the work Government is doing to prevent and treat concussion in sport.”

“By making the game safer, we make the game better for everyone. But it’s not about changing the rules: it’s about working with experts from the medical profession, science and technology to devise protocols, knowledge, and equipment to allow us all to continue playing the sports we love.”

“I am pleased to have been able to work with the Government to capitalise on the momentum that is already building to tackle this important national issue. And I’m proud of the work Love of the Game has done in this field which includes encouraging the development of new technologies which will serve sports people of all ages and levels.”

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Samson Rising: An Interview with John Hambly

  • Samson Rising documents your life, the roller-coaster of growing up on a tough Council Estate in Cornwall and your discovery of sport, through to your life-altering MS diagnosis and establishing a bespoke MS therapy centre in Surrey. What inspired you to share your story and what do you hope your readers take away from it?

Spending hours and hours in a chamber receiving oxygen therapy gives you time to think and reflect. I never set out to write a book. Instead, I would just jot down a few chapters as a form of therapy. It was a conversation with my cousin, who works in life coaching, that planted the seed that this could be the beginnings of a book.

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Love of the Game Holds First Ever UK Hackathon

Solutions to sport’s head injury crisis emerge from UK’s first virtual sporting ‘Hackathon’

Last weekend, Love of the Game (LOTG), the campaign which seeks to reduce concussion-related issues in sport, hosted the UK’s first sporting hackathon, to find actionable solutions to one of the greatest problems facing our modern games – early-onset dementia caused by head injuries.

The virtual ‘hakathon’ (the name inspired by LOTG’s links to rugby), organised by Hacking Health UK, brought together the brightest minds from the design, developer and engineering worlds combined with amateur and professional sports people, academics and researchers in the sport health fields. This unique selection of experts collaborated to create solutions to diagnose, grade and treat the effects of head injuries and concussion within sports.

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DCMS backs Love of the Game’s pioneering sporting Hackathon

Ahead of Love of the Game’s landmark Hakathon this weekend, we are pleased to have the support of the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and its Minister for Sport and Tourism Nigel Huddleston.

Ahead of the event Nigel said: “This ground-breaking Hackathon is a wonderfully creative innovation aimed at finding solutions to prevent, diagnose and treat head injuries and concussion across all levels of sport.

“The Government recognises the importance of this issue and we continue to work with sports bodies to build on the positive work that is already taking place on concussions in sport.

“The Hackathon is a fantastic example of creative tech-innovators collaborating to make sport safer for players and I look forward to receiving the results of their good work.”

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