Fifa latest governing body to review links with Concussion in Sport Group

Fifa is reviewing its relationship with the global sports concussion organisation it helps fund amid allegations of plagiarism against its former co-chair, the influential neuroscientist Dr Paul McCrory.

A week after McCrory tendered his resignation from the Concussion in Sport Group, football’s world governing body has joined World Rugby in putting distance between itself and the protocols the Australian academic has helped shape in a multitude of sports including the NFL, the Football Association and the AFL.

“It is with great concern that FIFA has taken note of the resignation of Professor McCrory from the Concussion in Sport Group (CISG),” Fifa said in a statement issued to the Guardian. “Given the seriousness of the situation, FIFA is currently analysing the work of the Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) as a whole in order to decide the best way forward.

“Generally speaking, FIFA is fully supportive of the tools and information that has come from the consensus statements made by the CISG and it will continue to ensure these tools are freely available to all who wish to use them.”

McCrory, a divisive figure who has previously described concussion among NFL players as “overblown”, was the lead author on four of the last five Consensus Statements on Concussion in Sport, from which Fifa and myriad other organisations draw their concussion guidelines and assessment protocols. That includes the standardised SCAT5 tool used by doctors to evaluate head injuries in athletes aged 13 and over.

But the CISG was embroiled in controversy this month after the British Journal of Sports Medicine retracted a 2005 editorial written by McCrory, the publication’s then editor, citing an “unlawful and indefensible breach of copyright” of