Whenever a fresh study on the dangers of concussion in sport hits the headlines it reminds me of the ominous prophecy from Malcolm Gladwell: that playing American football will one day become akin to joining the army. “We will disclose the risks and dare people to play,” he warned in 2013. “That’s what the army does. That’s what football is going to become.” In this future mushrooming evidence of traumatic brain injuries will turn the National Football League into a “ghettoised sport” – Gladwell’s words – avoided by the middle classes but still grimly embraced by the poor and desperate.
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