Former Premier League footballer Dean Windass diagnosed with dementia aged just 55
10 January 2025, 15:06
Former Premier League footballer Dean Wysindass has been diagnosed with dementia.
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Windass, 55, who played for Hull, Bradford and Middlesbrough among several other clubs in the 1990s and 2000s,
He helped Hull, his boyhood side, in their fairytale return to the Premier League aged 39, after returning to the club.
Windass, whose son Josh, 31, plays for Championship side Sheffield Wednesday, retired in 2009.
Now he has received the shock diagnosis aged only in his mid-fifties.
The news was revealed by fellow former pro David May, who was appearing on television to discuss the risk of former footballers suffering from dementia.
Read more: Christmas dementia alarm issued by NHS after spike in diagnoses across 2024
Former Manchester United player May said: "I only spoke to Dean Windass yesterday, ex-professional footballer. I asked Deano how he is.
"He's been diagnosed with Stage 2 dementia.
"He's the same age as me and he's worried sick of how it's going to be in the future for him."
May later said he had spoken to Windass on Thursday night to ask his permission.
"He was 100 per cent behind me mentioning that he had been diagnosed with stage 2 dementia," May added.
"Deano has just done an article for a national newspaper which will be published soon.. share the love."
Windass retweeted the and another that said: "I'm so sorry to hear that Deano... My mum had Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.
"Keep doing what you're doing mate, stay active body and mind my friend and of course you've got the Yorkshire grit, fighting spirit and great support."
The PFA and the Premier League have a confirmed commitment to increase funding to the Football Brain Health Fund beyond £1million.
Separate to the fund, the PFA also offers a dedicated support team which offers personalised guidance to players and families. One of those advisers is Dawn Astle, whose father Jeff played for West Brom and England and whose death from CTE in 2002 was determined to be death by industrial disease by a coroner.
The union also provides free and confidential access to dementia clinics and specialised Admiral Nurses, while the Advanced BRAIN Health Clinic in London serves mid-life retired male and female professional footballers and has received more than 100 referrals from the PFA.
These assessments aim to evaluate the deterioration of cognitive function, which could help reduce the risk or speed of developing neurodegenerative disease.
The FA co-funded the FIELD Study with the PFA, which produced the landmark 2019 finding that footballers were three and a half times more likely to die of neurodegenerative disease than age-matched members of the general population.
The latest FIELD update last month found the heightened risk among footballers' was not driven by general health and lifestyle factors.
While it will likely take long-term studies to definitively link repeated heading to an increased risk of developing neurodegenerative disease, the FA has taken steps to reduce the risk in any case and is phasing out all heading in youth football up to under-11s by 2026.
A limit of 10 'high force' headers in training per week has been imposed in adult football from the professional game down to grassroots.
An FA spokesperson said: "We continue to take a leading role in reviewing and improving the safety of our game.
"This includes investing in and supporting multiple projects in order to gain a greater understanding of this area through objective, robust and thorough research.
"We have already taken many proactive steps to review and address potential risk factors which may be associated with football whilst ongoing research continues in this area, including liaising with the international governing bodies."
