As Jean-Philippe Mateta returns in a helmet, what are footballers allowed to wear on their heads?

Crystal Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta will return to action in his side’s FA Cup quarter-final against Fulham this weekend, but with one notable difference.

The 27-year-old will wear protective headgear after requiring 25 stitches around his left ear following an incident in Palace’s victory over local London rivals Millwall in the previous round on March 1. 

Millwall goalkeeper Liam Roberts was sent off and subsequently banned for six matches after rushing out of his goal with a high foot and connecting with Mateta’s head, catching his ear and leaving the Frenchman requiring treatment for eight minutes as he lay on the Selhurst Park pitch before being carried off and taken to hospital.

Mateta was able to get back to work during Palace’s ongoing three-week break between games (as well as the year’s first international window, their March 15 league match was postponed because opponents Newcastle were playing in the Carabao Cup final that weekend) and scored twice in a practice match against the club’s youth team upon the squad’s return to the UK from a training camp in Spain, having been given the all-clear by medical staff. 

So what does this mean for Mateta now, what will he be wearing to protect the damaged area if and when he faces Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday and are there precedents for such a situation?

What will Mateta be wearing and what have Palace said about it?

Palace manager Oliver Glasner says he is confident there will be no problem for Mateta to reintegrate despite the ear protection he’ll be wearing.

“It’s like a water-polo helmet, but with one ear (out),” Glasner said in his pre-match press conference on Friday.

“I said to the doctor I remember Petr Cech wearing a helmet (after the Chelsea goalkeeper suffered a fractured skull in a collision during a match against Reading in 2006) and he said, ‘Yeah but the ear was free (uncovered), so we need the full helmet’. One of them was like you would use to ride a motorbike, but he couldn’t train with this because it was too heavy. Then we found the right one.

“I didn’t talk with him about (comfort). It was a discussion between him and the doctor. He’s had this protection for the last 10 days and he did well in training. He looks the same as he did before.

“He needed to get back into his rhythm, because he couldn’t really train for two weeks, with one week spent at home and the second training individually. It’s lucky that nothing was fractured and there was no concussion.

“He (has headed the ball a lot) in the last two weeks. Our medical team did a great job finding the right protection. There were three different ones he tried. If I believe it’s a problem I wouldn’t play him, but it looks like it isn’t a problem.

What do the rules stipulate?

This is governed by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) Laws of the Game under section 4.4.

This states, among other things, that head coverings must be either black or match the main colour of the team’s shirt, not be dangerous to the player wearing it or any other player (for example, any opening or closing mechanism around the neck) and must not have any part(s) extending out from the surface. The Football Association’s kit regulations allow advertising, to include the club logo (with a maximum area of 50cmsq) and the manufacturer’s logo (maximum area 20cmsq).

Might the headgear hinder Mateta?

Mateta’s Palace team-mate, United States international centre-back Chris Richards, once wore a mask when playing for Hoffenheim in the German Bundesliga in December 2021 after fracturing his nose. Speaking with reporters on Friday, Richards said he was confident the striker would have no issues. 

“It can somewhat be restricting but hopefully not with this one,” Richards says. “(Mateta) is not really checking his shoulders anyway, so he doesn’t have to turn too much. I think he’ll be fine.”

Richards says he experienced few limitations with his mask.

“I wore it for about three weeks. It didn’t take too long (to adapt). I had it fitted the day before the game so I just had to deal with it but it wasn’t too bad,” he says. “Heading the ball was a bit hard because I had the mask all the way across (my head). You’re supposed to head the ball here (in the middle of the forehead) if you have proper technique, and once when I did the ball just died.

“I felt like I’d go into any header and nobody was really going to beat me to it. The only problem was that it was really sweaty and I’m a pretty sweaty person, so it was dripping over my face, but it gave me a false sense of confidence.

“I felt like Batman. So it was pretty cool in that sense. But, psychologically, I was fine with it.”

Richards ‘felt like Batman’ when playing in a mask for Hoffenheim in 2021 (Frederic Scheidemann/Getty Images)

Are there other examples of players wearing protective headgear in games?

The most notable example of this, as mentioned above, is Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech who was forced to wear protective headgear which covered his entire head, similar to a rugby player’s scrum cap, after sustaining a fractured skull during Chelsea’s 1-0 win against Reading in October 2006 when caught by opposition midfielder Stephen Hunt’s knee. 

Defender Christian Chivu also suffered a fractured skull playing for Italian giants Inter in January 2010 and wore a protective headband upon his return to Serie A action. Former Manchester United and England striker Wayne Rooney suffered a cut to his head that required stitches in a training session and subsequently donned a protective headband in September 2013, wearing it for a month. 

In 2016, Denmark midfielder Sofie Junge Pedersen collided with a team-mate during a training session with Swedish team Rosengard, hit her head on the pitch and sustained a concussion which ultimately left her sidelined for a year before she returned wearing a protective headband.

Wolverhampton Wanderers striker Raul Jimenez still plays wearing such a headband after fracturing his skull in a November 2020 game against Arsenal after a clash of heads with opposition defender David Luiz.

Jimenez did not play in the Premier League for eight months before returning with an initially bulky protective device covering the affected area, and it had a negative influence on his performance. “He does not feel any different inside,” Wolves’ manager at the time Bruno Lage told Sky Sports in February 2022, “but the (head)band does not give him the same power and direction. It is a big change.”

The Mexico international subsequently began the following season with a thinner, more lightweight headband, with a larger section covering the area on the side of his head where the injury occurred. Jimenez scored the stoppage-time winner as his country beat Panama 2-1 in the Concacaf Nations League final in Los Angeles on Sunday, and could well be in the Fulham team facing Mateta tomorrow.

Mansfield Town defender James Perch also fractured his skull in 2021 during a training session when caught by a stray elbow and, after five months out, made his comeback with a headband not too dissimilar to that worn by Jimenez.

Other players have worn masks following facial injuries, with France and Paris Saint-Germain striker Kylian Mbappe requiring one to protect a broken nose while competing in last summer’s European Championship.

Manchester City and Croatia defender Josko Gvardiol used one in the 2022 World Cup, the Tottenham and South Korea forward Son Heung-min shielded a fractured eye socket sustained in November of that year with a mask, and then Napoli forward Victor Osimhen required one for the same reason.

(Top photos of Rooney, left, and Cech: Getty Images)