Question:
A study came out a few weeks ago with this allegation. This topic has probably been discussed to death in here but since I'm not a regular reader I thought I would just bring it up to see what people had to say. The brain damage apparently comes from getting hit in the head by the ball so many times - is a helmet needed in soccer to protect the players?

Answer: There was a study done and results were printed in the Washington Post over a year ago. The impetus on the study was of damage done to young children <9yrs who were made to head balls at a great number of times per practice, and done improperly. I wished I had saved the article. I remember that it equalled about 13 hits a day for every day of the year but in one season. The article did say that children should be taught to head the ball at the hairline of the head which is the thickest part of the skull, and that would cut down sharply on the possibility of any injury from the practice. Another study by the title of "Acute and chronic brain injury in United States National Team soccer players.", was published in the peer reviewed journal. The final sentence of the abstract is "These findings suggest that any evidence of encephalopathy in soccer players relates more to acute head injuries received playing soccer than from repetitive heading."

An exposure index to headers was developed to assess a dose-response effect of chronic heading. The soccer and track groups were questioned regarding alcohol use and history of acute head traumas. Questionnaire analysis and magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated no statistical differences between the two groups. Among the soccer players, symptoms and magnetic resonance imaging findings did not correlate with age, years of play, exposure index results, or number of headers. However, reported head injury symptoms, especially in soccer players, correlated with histories of prior acute head injuries (r = 0.63). These findings suggest that any evidence of encephalopathy in soccer players relates more to acute head injuries received playing soccer than from repetitive heading.