The Health Secretary is considering new primary school safety guidance for youngsters heading footballs.
Jeane Freeman confirmed the move three days after our sister paper the Sunday Mail by under-12s in games.
But at Holyrood yesterday, Freeman stopped short of immediate government action.
Asked by Labour’s Mary Fee if the SNP will copy the idea in schools, Freeman said: “The guidance that we might give to schools at this point in relation to this study will be informed by the further work that we need to undertake.
“However, Mary Fee is right to say that it is a critical area of work and to pick up on the point that was made earlier that, in this context, we are not talking solely about professional football players.”
SNP backbencher Kenny Gibson raised concerns after University of Glasgow research found professional players are over three times more likely to die of degenerative brain disease than the general population.
He backed the SFA’s “positive” plan to ban the heading of balls by under-12s.
However, Freeman said the survey is “only the start” of understanding the relationship between football and neurodegenerative disease.
She added: “There are benefits to people of all ages-boys and men, and women and girls-from participating in the game. Our role is to consider, with the stakeholders that I mentioned, how we can achieve more safety in the way in which the game is played and, in particular, how young people are engaged and trained to be football players.”
