Six former players join lawsuit against rugby authorities

Six more former professional rugby players have joined the lawsuit against the sport’s authorities over brain injuries, Rylands the legal firm leading the case announced on Thursday.

Four of them have requested anonymity although the Press Association news agency understands a former England and Wales international are included.

They join ex-England hooker Steve Thompson, who said he has no recollection of winning the 2003 World Cup, along with another former England player Michael Lipman and 33-time Wales back-rower Alix Popham, who revealed they were suing last week.

A pre-action letter of claim was delivered on Thursday to World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) on behalf of nine players being represented by Rylands Law.

The planned action is over the sport’s governing bodies “failure to protect (the claimants) from the risks caused by concussions”.

The players have also created 15 “commandments” which they feel World Rugby should adopt to make the game safer.

Rylands said they are talking to over 130 former players, whose ages range from their 20s to their 50s.

Many of them are showing symptoms of neurological problems and last week Richard Boardman of Rylands said he wanted World Rugby to make immediate changes to address the issue, which is also a growing concern in football.

Former Wales Under-20 centre Adam Hughes, who is now 30 and has joined the suit, has been diagnosed with having brain injuries and post-concussion symptoms since his career was ended in 2018.

The remaining eight have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, early onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma.

Rylands Law alleges the risks of concussions and sub-concussive injuries were “known and foreseeable” and lists 24 failures on the part of World Rugby, RFU and WRU.

The governing bodies have a maximum of three months from the date of acknowledgement of the letter of claim to respond.

The document focuses on “broad allegations” rather than “an exhaustive list of the evidence”.

Boardman said some of the test cases will disabuse those who believe it is a scrum-oriented issue.

“Last week’s announcement about the condition of some of rugby’s sporting greats has sent shockwaves around the sport. Yet, for many, it was inevitable,” Boardman said.

“I think what will surprise people when they see the test cases is the age of the players, but also the positions in which they played.

“You don’t have to be a bruising forward in the middle of the scrum to suffer concussive injuries.”

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