FORMER Pars skipper Roy Barry says he’s yet to be convinced that there is a definitive link between playing football and dementia.

The club’s iconic 1968 Scottish Cup winning captain, 75, believes that “a lot more evidence” has to be unearthed to prove that those who play the game are at greater risk than the general public from the disease.

Last week, the English Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association appointed Dr William Stewart and colleagues at Glasgow University and the Hampden Sports Clinic to lead an independent research study into the incidence of degenerative neurocognitive disease in former professional footballers.

The study, titled ‘Football’s Influence on Lifelong Health and Dementia Risk’, is due to start in January and comes after two years of research and development into the long-term effects of participation in football.

Results of a small research study in February, consisting of a group of retired players, suggested that repeatedly heading the ball could lead to dementia while former Newcastle United and England captain Alan Shearer presented a BBC documentary on the subject earlier this month.

The family of former West Browmich Albion forward Jeff Astle – who died in 2002 aged 59 from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), linked to repeatedly heading heavy leather footballs – have long campaigned to raise awareness around brain injury in football.

In October last year, Pars great George Peebles passed away after suffering with Parkinson’s Disease and dementia but Barry, who played against Astle in Athletic’s famous Cup Winners Cup quarter-final success in 1969 and during a spell in England with Coventry City, said: “It’s a very unfortunate thing but I think they have to come up with a lot more evidence.

“I don’t believe it has anything to do with heading a ball; I think it’s more of an illness of our time.

“I know about Jeff Astle – I played against him – and he was somebody who headed the ball a lot, but I know a lot of young men who headed the ball who have not contacted dementia.

“When I was playing it was an old, leather ball that was used and it got damn heavy when it was wet, but I’m not convinced that’s the reason.

“When it happens, it seems to happen to people who are more elderly and, it’s just my opinion, is nothing to do with heading the ball.

“I know that Nobby Stiles, Martin Peters (Alzheimer’s Disease) and Billy McNeill (dementia) are not well but these big players all get older as well.

“I think that it is just a terrible illness.”

Dr Stewart, consultant neurotherapist at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, said: “In the past decade there have been growing concerns around perceived increased risk of dementia through participation in contact sports, however research data to support and quantify this risk have been lacking.

“Through the FIELD study we hope to be able to provide some understanding of the long-term health impact of football within the next two to three years.”

The study is to look at a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes in approximately 15,000 former professional footballers.