They don't have to play it! Just like boxers don't have to box, MMA fighters don't have to fight but guess what they do knowing the risks in fact it is partly another driver to want to succeed with those risks.
I have no issue with people doing anything that have inherently associated risks as long as they're informed of those risks.
The game is already a bastardised version of its self, watered down bump and now tackle how much further do we take it? when does it stop?
The AFL have a duty of care to Australian Rules to ensure it survives into the future.
As has been pointed out by other posters; the (potential) next generation of AR playing kids are far more important than those like us who are already entrenched in the game. The AFL will be adjusting whatever rules they need to in an effort to make sure kids are playing AR and not soccer, basketball etc
I am assuming most people on here had at the least a junior career? did you feel like your life is under threat from playing AR?
Just because they/I didn't feel like our lives were under threat doesn't necessarily mean the threat doesn't exist,
I don't feel under threat every time I jump in my car to drive somewhere, swim in the ocean etc but there is certainly an element of risk in every behaviour
As the leading nueroroligists in aus says, many people who think they have CTE don't and ageing plus other factors are what are causing memory liss deppression etc.
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Do you have a source/name?
I'd tend to agree with him that a lot of people don't actually have CTE but I'm still interested as to whether there's actually any statistic evidence that this is the case.
NFL players who got it also all had other factors along with it drugs, roids and known mental disorders.
Who's to say that a cocktail of steroid, narcotics and concussions isn't what causes that "insanity" that the real bad cases suffered from...
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Of course.
Often times these things go hand in hand but currently no one knows for certain which of these factors comes first, or if any have a causative effect on the others.
Current theories suggest that genetic markers are associated with a high risk factor for things like mental illness and addiction. Who's to say there's not a genetic marker that predisposes someone to CTE? Or that the genetic markers associated with mental illness and addiction also predispose people to CTE?
A lot of AFL players who have "depression" funnily enough have also been "rumoured" to be known cocain partakers...funny that.
There'd be a lot of a lot more cocaine users that AREN'T suffering from depression than are.
By the same token there's a lot more depression sufferers who AREN'T using cocaine than are.
Either way, that's completely irrelevant to the discussion.