Concussion/CTE and the future of Australian football (John Hennessy)

Until quite recently, concussion was thought to be a reversible brain injury. Today, it is recognised as a major cause of early death and disability, affecting the lives of people of all ages. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) – concussion and CTE – is now an existential threat to contact sports around the world. In Australia, two out of every three people with brain injury acquired it before the age of 25. Australian football has one of the highest rates of TBI of any team sport in the world and concussion is the number one cause of hospitalisations in the sport, which have doubled in the past decade. Australia is seen as lagging many other countries in mitigating TBI in sport. In 2023, an Australian Government Senate Inquiry was held into the issue of concussion and CTE in sport.

John Hennessy was the first Corporate Planner in the VFL/AFL and was directly involved in planning the expansion of the VFL into a national competition, including ground rationalisation, the establishment of teams in Sydney and Brisbane and the establishment of the AFL Commission. Today, he is a Board member of the Community Concussion Research Foundation and FifthQtr Foundation, an organisation committed to improving the lives of past AFL players.

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