Match of the Day icon Gary Lineker previously shared his concern about developing dementia, a health issue that particularly frightens him.
The former Leicester City forward and England football legend, who is set to depart the BBC’s Premier League highlights programme this summer, maintains a routine of regular health checks following a prostate cancer scare back in 2020. He also stopped playing golf due to his battle with arthritis.
Lineker has been open about his health worries over the years, but it was back during his playing career in football that he became anxious about the impact of the sport on his body – especially his brain. He even consciously avoided heading drills in training to reduce any potential risks.
Lineker’s grave concerns came before extensive knowledge of football’s connection with the disease came to light. Research has since shown that former football professionals are 50 per cent more likely to develop dementia than the rest of the population, as per the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
In interview with The Sun in 2022, Lineker said: “Any footballer should be apprehensive [about headers] and I don’t mind admitting that I am. I headed the ball a lot as a kid – and when I was 20, 21, I made a conscious decision not to do it in training.
“We’d get wet, heavy balls in the winter months – we didn’t get new balls every week like they do now – and it was something I was concerned about, as I was a player who scored a lot of headers.”
While Lineker netted 331 goals for both club and country, 32 of these were scored using his head. He added: “I’ve had conversations with Alan Shearer and Ian Wright and others about the worry that, come 10, 15 years, that it [dementia] might happen to one of us. The odds suggest that it probably will.”
Back in 2022, he revealed: “I’ll have my triannual test this summer and ask if there’s anything they can establish around the brain, because I don’t see how, given the circumstances, any footballer wouldn’t be worried about it. It’s a worry. I don’t mind admitting that it concerns me. There’s no question there’s a link.”
Numerous high-profile footballers have succumbed to brain diseases, including 1966 World Cup hero Nobby Stiles, who passed away from dementia at 78. Parkinson’s disease has also affected Lineker’s family, claiming the life of his grandfather, who was also a football player, reports Surrey Live.
“My grandfather was in the army but a very good footballer, too,” Lineker told the Daily Mail. “He was in his mid-50s when he developed Parkinson’s. We didn’t think of why at the time.”
Dementia and Parkinson’s are not the only diseases that have caused some sleepless nights for Lineker. The former Everton and Tottenham striker once feared he had contracted Aids while playing for the Three Lions in 1988, during a period when the illness was viewed as a frightening prospect.
Lineker shared his scare in his 2019 memoir ‘Behind Closed Doors: Life, Laughs and Football’. “I started to notice something was wrong during the European Championships in the summer of 1988,” he said.
“In our second game we played… I felt considerably more ill – heavy-limbed and aching. There didn’t seem to be any explanation for it. I was also losing weight – about a stone and a half, it would eventually emerge. I quietly wondered if I had Aids. I managed to frighten myself with the thought.”