Joe Kinnear’s family part of brain injury legal action

Four Premier League-era players and the family of Joe Kinnear are part of the legal action against the football authorities over brain injuries sustained from playing the game, which returns to the Royal Courts of Justice on Wednesday.

They are part of a group of 35 former players who claim that the Football Association, English Football League, Football Association of Wales and Ifab, football’s law-making body, were negligent in failing to take reasonable action to protect them from permanent injury caused by repetitive concussive and subconcussive blows.

Before the latest hearing, which is a routine case management conference in advance of a potential future trial, solicitors for the players have submitted more than 8,000 pages of medical records and documents related to the case.

Six claimants have died during the litigation process, including Ireland international Kinnear last month. Solicitors for the players say that the players live or lived with irreversible neurological impairments, including early onset dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, post-concussion syndrome, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and motor neurone disease.

Speaking before the hearing the players’ solicitor, Richard Boardman, of Rylands Garth, accused the game’s authorities of seeking to delay legal proceedings.

“Today’s hearing is the latest milestone in our campaign to seek justice for those who were not protected by the football governing bodies from sustaining brain damage,” he said. 

“The sheer scale of the problem is illustrated by the fact that we have filed more than 8,000 pages of medical records and legal documents for the first 17 football claimants alone. The defendants are going to remarkable lengths to delay proceedings and