Sir Bobby Charlton has been diagnosed with dementia.

The Telegraph said that the 83-year-old’s wife, Lady Norma, was happy for the Manchester United and England great’s condition to be reported.

The newspaper said Lady Norma had given the breaking of the news her “blessing”, with the announcement coming two days after his club and country team-mate Nobby Stiles died after his own battle with the illness.

A study, led by consultant neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart of Glasgow University and published in 2019, revealed that former footballers are approximately three-and-a-half times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease than the general population.

The report, commissioned by the Football Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association, assessed the medical records of 7,676 men who played professional football between 1900 and 1976. Their records were matched against more than 23,000 individuals from the general population.

The study’s findings came 17 years after former England and West Brom striker Jeff Astle died at the age of 59 with what a coroner described as an “industrial injury”.

Astle’s daughter Dawn responded to the study’s findings by saying “these players who have suffered dementia must not be a statistic – they must never be forgotten”.