FORMER Salford, Huddersfield, St Helens and Hull FC star Josh Jones was diagnosed with Stage 2 CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) earlier this week.
Jones, 31, retired last year due to concussion-related issues shortly after Huddersfield Giants released him from their Super League side.
In a heartfelt statement posted on his social media, Jones said: “My friends and family, after a challenging few months I wanted to share that I have been diagnosed with stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
“The news has come as a shock for me and my family and has brought significant changes to my life and the lives of those closest to me.
“My family and I appreciate your support through this difficult period. Much love, Josh.”
CTE, which is thought to be linked to repeated head injuries and blows to the head, slowly gets worse over time and leads to dementia.
Now League Express can reveal that Jones is part of the ongoing group litigation against sports governing bodies by around 700 former rugby union and league players who maintain they failed in their duty of care to protect them from concussion-related neurological injuries like that of Jones’.
Others in the list also include the likes of Francis Maloney, Bobbie Goulding, Nick Fozzard, Lenny Woodard, Jason Roach and Mike Edwards.
RFL’s Director of Operations and Legal, Robert Hicks, previously explained what stage the current claim is at, how many people are involved and the belief that the sport can successfully defend itself.
“We have got a claim that is active within our sport. We are slightly behind the rugby union claim, but I can’t go into too much detail at the minute,” Hicks said on the League Express podcast.
“There is approximately 160 people in the claim and the playing years range from 1970 to 2023.
“It is in its embryonic stage so it will be basically managed in the high court by a senior master judge who will make some decisions around if the rugby league claim is separate to the rugby union and football claims which are all ongoing and are on public record as ongoing.
“We will respond to that appropriately through the courts. Anybody who has suffered a brain injury, we have a huge sympathy for.
“But we believe we can successfully defend this claim because it is based on a legal test of duty of care and we can only know what we knew at the time.
“Our changes now are not anything to do with the claim but about protecting future claims because what you know now is what you’re assessed against for people who are playing now. What we knew in 1970 will be assessed against the claims in that era.”
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