The Labour Party is calling for sports governing bodies to introduce a single unified concussion protocol, including substitutions for head injuries, after its deputy leader accused football of “turning a blind eye to the brain injury ­epidemic”.

Tom Watson, who is also the shadow culture secretary, will adopt as Labour policy at the next general election the requirement that common standards are implemented across the United Kingdom, including a minimum time frame in which participants can return to play following a concussion.

In football, this ranges from 19 days for an amateur player down to just six for a professional in an “enhanced care setting”. Other sports also have different guidelines and doctors have questioned the medical logic behind such divergence. “Brains aren’t different depending on what sports are being played,” said Dr Michael Grey, a neurologist at the University of East Anglia.

It all follows a series of alarming incidents at the World Cup, when Fifa’s own concussion protocols were sometimes not followed, and a new report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Injury which revealed that someone in the UK is taken to hospital with an acquired brain injury every 90 ­seconds.

“It’s simply pot luck how safe your sport is in the UK,” said Watson. “If you’re lucky, you play a sport where they take concussion seriously and at a level that provides support, but for far too many people including most of the footballers in the country, their governing body is turning a blind eye to the brain injury epidemic and its serious consequences and the Government is doing nothing about it.