Love of the Game

Love of the Game began as a campaign in 2021 and became a Charity in England and Wales in March 2023 (No. 1202462). It seeks to reduce concussion-related issues arising from contact and non-contact sports. Love of the Game takes a solutions-based approach to the problem by working with athletes, technologists, academics and the business and financial communities to develop new technologies that will prevent, diagnose and treat head injuries in sport.

We are an impassioned community of athletes, players, fans, innovators and experts, united by our love of sport and the desire to, not only protect players of all ages from the potentially devastating impact of head injuries, but also to protect the integrity of the sports we know and love. Love of the Game aims to preserve our sports by reducing the risk of early onset dementia to players, lengthening sporting careers and reducing the fear of taking part.

Our mission statement is:

To protect players of all ages from the potentially devastating impact of head injuries, while also protecting the integrity of the sports we know and love.

Like most sports, success is the product of a whole team. Solving this crisis is no different. We have brought together a unique network of over 600 supporters representing the UK’s major sports, government, academia, technology, science and business. We are forging new and productive relationships with major and grass-roots sporting clubs, research institutes, charitable organisations and major governing sports bodies.

Love of the Game (LOTG) itself represents a meeting of the worlds of sport and business/campaigning through its founders. Its key figure is former England and British and Irish Lions rugby union international Simon Shaw MBE. Simon, who played elite rugby for 23 years, now suffers from frequent memory loss, an issue he believes is caused by the severe knocks to the head he faced as a player.  

Solutions-based approach

Rather than focusing on the challenges of the past, LOTG’s aim is to protect the players of the future and ensure that future athletes are protected from long term health risks that yesterday’s and today’s players have had to accept. In order to achieve this, LOTG promotes actions across a series of pillars:

Education

• Improving recognition of the symptoms of concussion
• Positioning the long-term protection of the head and brain as part of a player’s training regimen and routine

Diagnosis

• Promoting more coherent sharing of information to aid in the identification of diagnosis tools
• Developing a more sophisticated method of identifying the signs of concussion at the point of impact and for markers over the course of a player’s career
• Creating impact assessment wearables and big data analysis to grade risk and severity of concussion and the proper course of action needed

Treatment & prevention

• Promoting multi-disciplinary collaboration (bringing together investors, inventors, researchers and sports experts) to accelerate product development, experimentation and implementation.

Concussion Research

In April 2024, LOTG hosted its second annual UK Concussion Prevention Network Conference in London, in partnership with the University of Bath and the University of Calgary. This event marked the formal establishment of the UK Concussion Prevention Network (UKCPN).

Following this, a Steering Group and an Advisory Group were created to deliver the network’s objectives and provide governance, as well as facilitate communication with key stakeholder organisations.

In December 2025, the UKCPN hosted its second annual UK Concussion Conference. Representatives from LOTG attended, with Chair Stuart Bagshaw and Medical Advisor Professor Mike Parker leading a session on concussion education.

LOTG is also supporting its education partner, Concussion Toolkit, in the planning stages of a Welsh national research project in collaboration with Bangor University. This project will explore concussion implementation initiatives and represents Phase 2 of a wider programme of research.

Concussion Technology

LOTG is currently in the planning stages of a concussion-focused hackathon in collaboration with Bupa Labs. There are also ongoing discussions with The King’s Trust to collaborate on this initiative, with the aim of providing young people with exposure to the sports medicine industry and opportunities to engage with leading experts in the field.

Concussion Education

As of September 2025, LOTG entered into a formal partnership with Concussion Toolkit (CT), with CT acting as LOTG’s education partner. Concussion Toolkit delivers concussion education, awareness, and guidance to universities and schools. Together, LOTG and CT aim to increase concussion awareness at the grassroots level through initiatives such as a national poster campaign.

LOTG continues to support Concussion Toolkit in scaling both its digital concussion toolkit and in-person workshops. These services are now reaching over 3,000 students. Concussion Toolkit also launched the #MoreThanAKnock campaign, encouraging student athletes to share their concussion experiences via video to raise awareness and normalise conversations around concussion. The campaign has received over 18,000 engagements to date.

LOTG has acquired the rights to white-labelled concussion education video modules from Complete Concussion Management Inc. (CCMI), which are currently being adapted for a UK audience and will be distributed across grassroots sports clubs.

In January 2026, Board Members Simon Shaw and Professor Mike Parker, alongside LOTG supporter Donna Sanderson-Hull, presented at the HMC Sport Committee Meeting, providing recommendations on concussion management in schools.

In February 2026, LOTG met with Rachel Faull-Brown, Player Welfare Manager at the RFU, to discuss updates to the Headcase resources. Following a successful initial meeting, LOTG was commissioned to conduct an audit of the resources and will present recommendations in May 2026.

In March 2026, LOTG partnered with the Wasps Legends Foundation Hall of Fame event, receiving a proportion of the funds raised. These funds will contribute towards a national concussion awareness campaign, building on the #MoreThanAKnock initiative within the university sector.

LOTG is currently preparing a submission to the DCMS Committee’s State of Play inquiry, aiming to re-establish concussion as a key topic, update guidelines in line with the latest research, and ensure that policies are gender-informed.