Billy Vigar's parents say FA could have prevented his death

Billy Vigar's parents say the Football Association could have stopped their son from dying.

Billy was 21. A former Arsenal academy player, he was playing for Chichester City at Wingate and Finchley in north London when he collided with a concrete wall around the pitch. He died five days later from a significant brain injury.

In their first broadcast interview since his death, his parents Keith and Camilla Vigar accused the FA of doing "nothing" after earlier warnings about hard structures so close to play. Camilla Vigar told BBC Sport she felt the FA could have stopped Billy losing his life because they had so many warnings.

Those warnings stretch back more than a decade. Amateur footballer Ben Hiscox died in 2015 after colliding with a clubhouse near Bristol. A coroner warned the FA about the risk of future deaths, and padding was later added to Stoke Gifford United's clubhouse with more space left between the building and the pitch.

Then, in 2022, Bath City defender Alex Fletcher fractured his skull on concrete barriers beside the pitch. He survived but had to retire in 2024. The FA carried out a review of clubs after that incident.

Camilla Vigar said Wingate and Finchley was one of the grounds flagged as high-risk in that review. It is where Billy later suffered his fatal injury during an Isthmian League match, part of the non-league pyramid below the top four divisions. When asked what was done with the information from its review, the FA provided no comment to the BBC.

At the time of Billy's accident, the FA's stadium rules required clubs to have a permanent barrier of sound construction around the pitch. Concrete and steel were given as examples.

That position has now changed. After Billy's death, the FA ordered a safety review of more than 900 clubs by independent experts. Last month it updated its stadium criteria to no longer allow solid brick, breeze block or concrete barriers around pitches, according to BBC Sport. Where a wall is structural and cannot be removed, it must be covered with suitable protection such as padding.

The FA said 169 clubs in the men's National League System and the Women's National League will need to make changes as soon as is reasonably practicable. Funding for the work is being provided by the FA and the Premier League.

For supporters who watch football at small grounds, this means the low concrete walls long seen as a normal part of the surroundings are now treated as a safety risk. The inquest into Billy's death is still to be held in full. A coroner has told his parents it will not be a short process.