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Former England captain Alan Shearer has accused football’s bosses of trying to ignore fears that heading causes dementia.

The Match of the Day pundit said the sport had left ex-players with dementia on the scrapheap by not doing the necessary research or offering support.

Striker Shearer, 47, who headed one in five of his record 260 Premier League goals, practised the skill up to 150 times a day in training. Now he fears that may have damaged his brain.

The Daily Mirror has revealed three of England’s 1966 World Cup winners have dementia or memory problems, along with at least 375 other players.

(Image: BBC)

(Image: BBC)

Shearer said: “Nowhere near enough research has been done. The authorities have been very reluctant to find out any answers. They have swept it under the carpet, which is not good enough.

“Football must look after old players with dementia and put an end to this sense that once you are done playing, you can be put on the scrapheap. It’s a tough game, it’s a brilliant game, but we have to make sure it’s not a killer game.”

Shearer wanted to know if he was likely to develop dementia so had scans and tests to examine how heading the ball affected his brain for a new BBC documentary Dementia, Football and Me, which airs on Sunday.

The results will be revealed on the show.

He said: “There are pictures of me playing with blood pouring down my face. They’d put stitches in, you headed the ball again and they came out.

“For every goal I scored with a header during a game, I must have practised it 1,000 times in training. That must put me at risk if there is a link.

“So the tests were pretty nerve-wracking. I have got a terrible memory. I don’t know if that is because I don’t listen, but I have got a poor memory.

(Image: BBC)

(Image: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

“When you play football as a professional you expect in later life you are going to have problems with your knees, your ankles, or you back, like I have.

“But never did I think playing football could be linked to having a brain disease. That is why the research has to be done.”

While making the programme Shearer, a Premier League title winner with Blackburn Rovers in 1995 who scored 30 goals for England, met footballers with dementia and their families.

That included his mentor Chris Nicholl, 71, who gave him his big break at Southampton and taught him to head the ball. The ex-Northern Ireland international defender, who won the League Cup twice, is convinced his career has left him battling dementia.

Nicholl said: “I am brain damaged from heading footballs. My memory is in trouble. Everyone forgets regular things, where your keys are. But when you forget where you live, that’s different. I’ve had that for the last four or five years, it is definitely getting worse. It bothers me.”

Shearer said: “It was tough to see the way Chris is now, because he gave me my debut. He had me heading 100 or 150 balls a day to improve, but he did it for the right reasons.”

Shearer also met striker Matt Tees, 78, who won the old Division Four title with Grimsby Town.

Tees is entering the latter stages of dementia and no longer recognises his own home. His wife May said: “There has to be a link to football.

Without trying hard I can name eight players Matt played with in this area who have dementia. That speaks volumes in my opinion.”

(Image: Getty) (Image: Mirrorpix)

Experts have suspected heading footballs may cause brain damage and dementia for decades but a firm link was not made until the inquest into the death of England striker Jeff Astle in 2002.

A coroner found West Brom star Astle, 59, died from a form of dementia called CTE, known as boxer’s brain, caused by heading footballs. His daughter Dawn Astle said: “In any other industry that landmark inquest decision would have prompted a tidal wave of change, but not in football.”

In the 15 years since, neither the Football Association nor international body FIFA have funded any meaningful research into the dangers of heading footballs. Players’ Union, the Professional Footballer’s Association does not even know how many of its 50,000 members have dementia.

Many coaches, such as ex-England striker Les Ferdinand, Director of Football at his former club Queen’s Park Rangers, say they need to see more evidence before they stop young players heading the ball in training.

And former England captain John Terry admits he encourages his daughter Summer Rose, 11, to head the ball, even though experts fear girls are at the greatest risk of harmful concussion.

Shearer said after Bolton’s Fabrice Muamba had collapsed on the pitch in March 2012 with a cardiac arrest every club had a defibrillator within six months. He said a lot is done for players with gambling problems.

But he said Astle was diagnosed with an industrial disease but not enough has been done.

He added: “There are a lot of angry people out there and rightly so. The surprising thing is no one has stood up and said, ‘We messed up, we should have done more’.”

This is in stark contrast to American Football which has a £190million benevolent fund for affected players.

In August we revealed how footballers with the disease, including ex-England international Stan Bowles and the late Spurs double-winner Peter Baker, relied on charity from fans to fund their care, despite the Premier League earning £8.1billion-a-year from TV revenue alone.

Former ­footballer John Stiles, whose dad Nobby has dementia along with fellow World Cup winners Martin Peters and Ray Wilson, told Shearer he was angry nothing had been done.

(Image: Getty) (Image: PA)

John said: “It’s not treated like a disease, it’s treated as old age, so you’ve got to cover the cost yourself. All these families, as well as watching their loved one disappear, have no help.

“Most of them have had to sell their homes to pay for their care. If that has been caused by heading the ball, then that is a disgrace.” The PFA have ­previously been criticised for not fighting hard enough for answers.

But when confronted by Shearer, chief executive Gordon Taylor made his strongest statement yet. He said: “It has been put to me that maybe clubs are very wary, because there may be compensation.

"But football has a duty to see if there is a causal link. If there is and that could significantly increase the problems in later life, then we need to look at the rules of the game.”

FA medical director Charlotte Cowie accepted it had avoided the issue in the past but said: “I feel we like are running towards this problem at the moment.”

She said the FA were looking to study former professional footballers to get results as quickly as possible, and it could ban children from heading the ball if early evidence showed it damaged the brain.