Amateur athletes who incur head injuries while playing sport are often left permanently impaired and uncompensated in games without clear concussion guidelines according to several high profile groups.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says more than 2,300 sports head injuries led to hospitalisation in the 2019-20 period and 80% of those involved concussion.

Sporting concussions exist in both a kind of legal, regulatory and medical no-man’s land - the long-term impacts of concussion are not entirely known, there are no national guidelines for sporting organisations on how to prevent or deal with concussions, while legally the question of liability remains somewhere between uncertain and uncompensatable.

On 1 December 2022, the Senate referred an inquiry into concussions and repeated head trauma in contact sports to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee for inquiry.

Many have told that inquiry that of lack of accountability around sporting concussion is failing those injured.

Concussion Australia told the inquiry that “At this stage all sporting associations (and stakeholders at large: governments, parents, coaches, society) have failed to support former players living with concussion”.

The Royal Austalian College of GPs said that “Sport governing bodies need to adapt rules of contact sports, where relevant, to prioritise prevention of concussion in the first instance.”

There is also concerns about whether a concussed athlete with possible long-term damage is given any coverage in the courts. 

Shine Lawyers told the inquiry “Despite the seriousness of the injury, the legal landscape in Australia has been stacked against players, meaning not only can they not afford access to treatment or to support their families; there is also little by way of consequence for sporting bodies to reform, inform, warn, or make the sports safer for Australians at all levels.”

Concussion Australia agreed saying “The pending concern of associations and clubs in our view remains with legal liability compared to supporting current and former athletes with concussion and concussion related injuries”.

A quarter of all hospitalisations for concussion caused by sport, were related to contact sports which include Australian rules football, basketball, combative sports, and rugby union and league.

The NRL recently announced its previously more club-based discretionary concussion stand-down process would be replaced by a mandatory 11 days off-field for players who have been diagnosed with what they are calling “category one” concussion. While the AFL updated its concussion guidelines in 2021 and gave players a mandatory stand-down period of 12 days.

A spokesperson from the Cobar Rugby League club told the Western Plains App that the issue of individual responsibility had been overlooked in this debate.

“It’s not the game’s fault if someone has a head injury. You know that there a might be a chance that you could get a head injury when you agree to play the game. You’ve got to take personal responsibility. Rugby clubs are usually made up of volunteers after all.”

He was worried that modified versions of rugby were making players less resilient to “hard knocks” and less skilled in regard to tackling.

“Playing league tag, for example, means that young people are not learning how to tackle or fall properly” he said.

“Learn how to tackle when you start playing when your five years old, then by the time you get to 12 that’s seven years and there is less of a chance a head injury will happen”.

The inquiry is currently due to hold public hearings at the end of April with its report due in June.