Football is facing a new parliamentary inquiry into the sport’s dementia crisis, with the Football Association told to “hang its head in shame” over its handling of an inquest into a former player with a devastating brain disease.

The FA had claimed at a pre-inquest hearing last week that it was not in the public interest for a coroner to investigate whether playing football killed the former Middlesbrough defender Bill Gates, who died last October after being left unable to speak, walk or care for himself.

An autopsy revealed that he was suffering from severe chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition linked to repeated head impacts and increasingly being discovered in former footballers.

However, as revealed by The Telegraph, the FA told senior coroner Jeremy Chipperfield that the scope of his investigation, which is to include the potential impact of head trauma while playing football, should be dramatically curtailed.

“To expand it to the course of the occupation as a footballer is neither desirable nor proportionate nor necessary,” said Roger Harris, the FA’s barrister, citing separate High Court proceedings which are set to examine issues around football, CTE and dementia. The Gates family, however, are not part of that civil action.

Dinenage demands investigation

The FA’s position has prompted a backlash among families of former footballers with dementia and Dame Caroline Dinenage, chair of the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee, has now urged the FA to help specifically investigate “whether football was linked to what sadly happened to Mr Gates”.

She also now wants a parliamentary investigation to include football and neurological disease. “Certainly, when the committee is reconstituted in the coming weeks, I will be suggesting we consider the need for an inquiry into the links between brain damage and concussions in sports like football and rugby,” she said.

Jeff Astle became the first footballer diagnosed with CTE following an inquest in 2002 which ruled that he died of an ‘industrial disease’ as a result of heading footballs.

Families ‘shocked’

His daughter, Dawn Astle, said that she was in disbelief upon learning of the FA’s stance on the Gates inquest and the precedent it could have set. “I’m shocked - families deserve to know the truth,” said Astle, a trustee for The Jeff Astle Foundation.

Russ Doffman, the daughter of Joe Kinnear, whose autopsy also showed that he had been suffering with CTE, said: “This is madness, how can the FA claim that investigating this potential link at an inquest is not in the public interest?”

In making its argument, the FA said that the civil proceedings - in which it is a defendant - would “inevitably delve rather more deeply” into the same “generic” issues and suggested that this would be the best forum. They say that they were raising a technical point about having similar important questions being heard in multiple forums.

“The FA should hang its head in shame,” said Richard Boardman, the Rylands Garth lawyer who is representing the High Court football claimants. “Using our case as cover to avoid scrutiny in a coroner’s inquest is appalling and can only deny family members the answers they have every right to receive.”

An FA statement said: “We reiterate our sympathy for the Gates family. Whilst we do not think it is appropriate to comment on an ongoing inquest, our position is that the question of any potential links between football and neurodegenerative disease is clearly a matter of public interest which needs to be handled appropriately and properly.

“We continue to lead the way in taking steps to help reduce potential risk factors within the game whilst ongoing research continues in this area.”