Overview

• The Upper Tribunal will hear the appeal on October 1, with Watson’s team arguing repeated head injuries should count as accidents for industrial injury benefits.
• A First-tier Tribunal accepted at least ten documented head injuries from Watson’s career but rejected his appeal after characterising his exposures as a long-running process.
• The appeal, backed by the PFA and brought by Leigh Day, also alleges the earlier panel failed to give adequate reasons and drew flawed inferences from limited family history evidence.
• The Department for Work and Pensions declined to comment on the case and pointed to an ongoing Industrial Injuries Advisory Council review into neurodegenerative disease in professional sport.
• Watson, 78, is living with probable Alzheimer’s and probable CTE, and a successful appeal could see the case sent back for reconsideration and inform how similar claims are assessed, including potential IIDB payments of about £45 to £225 per week.