Alan Shearer says questions need to be answered over the future of a groundbreaking study into links between football and dementia following the death of Manchester United great Nobby Stiles.
Shearer made a BBC documentary on the subject in 2017, investigating whether there is a link between heading footballs and the brain disease.
Stiles' family featured on the documentary after the United legend was revealed to be suffering from advanced dementia in 2016.
His son, John, has previously spoken out about the links between the disease and heading footballs, with a study on the topic subsequently taking place after Shearer's documentary was aired.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live in the wake of Stiles' death, which was announced yesterday, Shearer revealed that funding for the research was due to run out in six months.
Yet he argued that more needed to be done in order to provide answers to the families of former footballers who have gone on to suffer from brain diseases.
He said: "We'd spoken to the family when we did the documentary. As you can imagine, they were pretty angry in terms of lack of answers and the research has started.
"There's about six months left of funding then there are serious questions about where it goes from there. That needs to be answered because there's no way it can be stopped, there are too many families who need those answers.
"There are too many families that are being left alone and are unable to fund what they need to. There's still work to be done and hopefully that will continue to happen."
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