Since 2020, the International Board (Ifab), guardian of the rules of football, has launched an experiment by authorizing competition organizers to test concussion protocols allowing the permanent replacement of one player per team in the event of a suspicious shock, outside the rule of five substitutions maximum.
"As the players' representative body in England, we have made a clear request to Ifab for the introduction of temporary replacements for concussion cases," the PFA said in a statement.
"These temporary concussion replacements will allow medical teams to work more calmly in order to provide the best possible diagnosis (...) without a team being outnumbered, reducing the pressure on players and medical teams" , continues the PFA.
Sunday against Manchester United (4-2), Leeds player Robin Koch, injured in the skull and his head surrounded by a huge bandage, first resumed play before leaving definitively 19 minutes later.
In the same scenario in rugby, for example, the player would have left the field, temporarily replaced, and the temporary replacement could have become a permanent replacement in the event of the replaced player not returning.
"Robin Koch's example provides further evidence that current concussion protocols in football do not prioritize player safety," the PFA said.
"It often happens that players return to play after suffering concussions, and are forced to leave the field permanently a little later after seeing their symptoms worsen."
The Premier League is part, like Ligue 1 in France, of the national championships having agreed to lend itself to the experimentation proposed by Ifab on concussions.
But Leeds did not use their right to an additional substitution granted as part of this experiment because, according to their coach Marcelo Bielsa, Koch suffered a cut in the scalp and not a concussion.
© 2022 AFP