{"id":726187,"date":"2026-06-09T23:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/726187\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T23:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T23:09:11","slug":"fathers-cte-diagnosis-fuels-call-to-ban-youth-soccer-heading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/726187\/","title":{"rendered":"Father\u2019s CTE diagnosis fuels call to ban youth soccer heading"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO – With the FIFA World Cup kicking off in Canada, attention is squarely on soccer. In the coming weeks fans will see plenty of heading on the field – the technique of redirecting the ball in mid-air with the head instead of the feet. For one Toronto family, now feels like the right time to raise awareness about the push to protect young players from its potential harms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up to us to protect the next generation,\u201d says Georgia Risnita. \u201cI\u2019m hoping that Soccer Canada steps up and puts policy into place that can protect the kids, particularly those that are the most vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week marks one year since the death of her father Marinel Risnita, known to friends as \u201cMario\u201d. A Romanian-born midfielder, he played for FC Rapid Bucure\u0219ti before defecting to Italy in 1979 and coming to Canada in 1983, where he suited up for Toronto Italia and the Toronto Blizzard.<\/p>\n

\"\"Georgia Risnita holds image of her father Georgia Risnita holds a photo of her father Marinel, a former professional soccer player whose brain autopsy confirmed CTE after his death last year (John Vennavally-Rao\/CTV News). <\/p>\n

Heading was important to his game. \u201cIt was ball-on-head contact, it was shoulder-on-head. It was head-on-head,\u201d Georgia says. \u201cHe lit up when he was on the field. He was built for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 57, Marinel suffered the first of three strokes, which was followed by frontal dementia that progressed quickly. He died June 8, 2025, at age 70.<\/p>\n

Georgia had long suspected her father lived with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head impacts. After his death, she donated his brain to the Canadian Concussion Centre at Toronto Western Hospital.<\/p>\n

The autopsy confirmed her suspicion.<\/p>\n

\u201cCTE is just not massive blow impact. It\u2019s repetitive and it\u2019s like death by 1,000 paper cuts,\u201d says Georgia who wants parents to know the hits that could cause CTE can be minor. <\/p>\n

\"\"Georgia Risnita poses with her father Georgia Risnita poses with her father on his 70th birthday (John Vennavally-Rao\/CTV News) CTE\u2019s long-lasting impacts <\/p>\n

CTE was long associated with boxing, football and hockey. But researchers say the picture is expanding.<\/p>\n

Dr. Carmela Tartaglia, a neurologist and co-director of the Canadian Concussion Centre, says it\u2019s only been in recent years that scientists started examining the brains of former soccer players and began finding CTE and other neurodegenerative diseases.<\/p>\n

She says young players are especially vulnerable because the human brain does not fully develop until well into adulthood and the white matter tracts connecting different brain regions are still forming during the teenage years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat repetitive head impact might have long-lasting effects, which makes us worried,\u201d Tartaglia says. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t have any idea that they\u2019ve sustained something to the brain and that cumulative effect is what we\u2019re worried about,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

A decade ago, the U.S. Soccer Federation banned heading for players 10 and under during games and training. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland banned heading practice for children under 12 in 2020. <\/p>\n

\"\"Marinel Risnita, second from bottom right Marinel Risnita, second from bottom right, during his playing days in Romania (John Vennavally-Rao\/CTV News) <\/p>\n

Canada Soccer has issued guidelines for kids under 11, saying heading \u201cshould not be introduced in training sessions.\u201d <\/p>\n

But those are recommendations. <\/p>\n

Tim Fleiszer, executive director of the Concussion Legacy Foundation Canada and a former CFL player, has been pushing Canada Soccer on this for nearly a decade. He welcomed the guidelines but is not satisfied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not go as far as they\u2019ve gone in the U.S. and the U.K., and our concern is that we\u2019re falling behind other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleiszer is also a father of three boys who all play soccer. He says the gap between what the guidelines say and what actually happens on the field is a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my 10-year-old\u2019s soccer game the other day, I counted almost 20 headers. So it is happening, and it\u2019s happening in games.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you\u2019re just concerned about athletic performance. What we\u2019ve seen is reaction time gets affected proportional to the number to the impacts that kids or athletes take over the course of their career,\u201d Fleiszer says. <\/p>\n

\"\"Marinel Risnita Marinel Risnita, who was known as Mario, played soccer for more than 30 years and passed away on June 8, 2025 (John Vennavally-Rao\/CTV News) The moment to raise awareness <\/p>\n

Georgia Risnita hopes her father\u2019s diagnosis moves the needle. With the world\u2019s eyes on soccer this summer, she thinks the moment to raise awareness is now. This week also marked the one year anniversary of her father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted his legacy to be to help with the research on CTE, and to help the next generation,\u201d Risnita says. <\/p>\n

Fleiszner says Canada Soccer has agreed to meet with his group after the World Cup. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that at that point we\u2019ll be able to go a step farther and establish a policy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO – With the FIFA World Cup kicking off in Canada, attention is squarely on soccer. In the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[712,49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-726187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}