Rugby study finds former players face 15x higher motor neurone disease risk

A study of former Scottish rugby internationals has surfaced evidence that demands urgent attention from the sport's governing bodies. Researchers at the University of Glasgow compared health outcomes for 412 male former international players against more than 1,200 matched individuals from the general population. The findings were stark: former players carried more than twice the risk of developing any neurodegenerative disease, and faced a 15-fold increased risk of motor neurone disease specifically.

Professor Willie Stewart, the consultant neuropathologist who led the research published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, described the results as a "big surprise." He did not mince words about what the numbers mean for rugby's future. The modern game, he argued, has progressively increased players' exposure to head injuries since turning professional in 1995. That trajectory troubles him deeply. "I am genuinely concerned about what is happening in the modern game," Stewart said, "and that if, in 20 years' time, we repeat this study we would see something even more concerning."

Stewart's prescription for change is radical by the sport's standards. Contact training during the week should become "virtually a thing of the past," he argued. The global calendar should shrink rather than expand. Match schedules should be scrutinized: the current model asks young men and women to play week after week for most of the year, ostensibly for entertainment. He questioned whether that burden is defensible now that the evidence is clear. "You can't continue to put young men and women through what they're being put through now we know even from the amateur era there's this risk of brain disease," he said.

The study was part-funded by the English Football Association and the Professional Footballers' Association, building on a landmark 2019 investigation into former professional footballers that found they died from neurodegenerative disease at roughly three and a half times the expected rate. That earlier work opened a door; this rugby research walks through it with specific numbers. Stewart's working hypothesis is straightforward: head injury exposure in sport increases the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. The evidence keeps pointing the same direction.

Yet significant uncertainties remain. Motor neurone disease is rare enough that the control group in this study contained no cases of it at all, making the 15-fold figure harder to anchor with precision. Dr. Susan Kohlhaas, director of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, acknowledged the gaps. Larger studies are needed. The research focused on men; the impact on women players remains unknown. Grassroots rugby was not examined. The modern professional game's specific contribution to risk, as distinct from the amateur era, is not yet fully clear.

Alzheimer's Research UK is committing £500,000 to further investigation into brain injury and long-term dementia risk, aiming to fill those gaps. The charity has outlined priorities for future research: studying head injuries in women, at grassroots level, and in today's professional game. What happens next depends on whether rugby authorities treat Stewart's findings as a call to action or as one data point among many. His message was unambiguous: the time for incremental change has passed. The sport needs to move quickly and dramatically to reduce the cumulative burden on players' brains.