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NEARLY TWO YEARS AFTER HER FATHER'S DEATH, SKY SPORTS' HAYLEY MCQUEEN, THE DAUGHTER OF MANCHESTER UNITED LEGEND GORDON, REVEALED SHE HAS STILL NOT RECEIVED A DEATH CERTIFICATE

14:18, 27 May 2025 Sky Sports presenter Hayley McQueen has revealed she has still not received a death certificate for her late father Gordon. McQueen, 45, announced in June 2023 that

Gordon, who was best known for his playing days at Manchester United and the Scotland national team, had passed away aged 70. Two years earlier, the former central defender was diagnosed

with vascular dementia. At the start of the year, it was announced that there would be an inquest into McQueen's death at Northallerton Coroners Court, where they would hear the impact

of heading the ball during his career - and would also consider how many of the goals he scored were headers. Hayley and her family have previously expressed their fear that heading

footballs may have had a hand in him developing dementia. Around five months after the inquest was called, Hayley has revealed that her family are yet to receive a death certificate.

Appearing on the Ainslie + Ainslie Performance People podcast, McQueen replied: "Yes. We are still waiting for the cause of death and whether it’s ruled as industrial disease."

Hayley reached out to Professor William Stewart, a leading researcher in brain health who was heavily involved in the 2021 parliamentary inquiry into the link between sport and long-term

brain injury, to offer her father's brain for medical science, soon after his passing. She added: "I was in contact with him before and we discussed a few things. "I’d had to

get quite a matter of fact about things, but I was like 'Oh, my dad does want to donate his brain to medical science’. We did that privately, but our local coroner determined that he

wanted to open an inquest because on my Dad’s death certificate - well he doesn’t have a death certificate - the interim cause of death, when you’re issued a certificate to be able to deal

with banking issues and things like that, was down as pneumonia. "My dad did not die from pneumonia. He was bed bound and because of the liquid intake, it was a complication.

Eventually, that took him." Explaining what Professor Stewart found, Hayley said: "Everything points towards the heading of the football. There is CTE (Chronic Traumatic

Encephalopathy) that professor Willie Stewart found. He’s just the most wonderful and incredible man, and he sat with us and broke down everything in the post-mortem.” In 2019, the Football

Association and the Professional Footballers' Association carried out their own research and concluded that ex-football players are three-and-a-half times more likely to die from

degenerative brain diseases. In terms of the inquest into McQueen's death, the brief hearing stated that they could not decide on a date, as they were unable to locate his medical

records between 1972 and 1995. Coroner Jon Heath said he would need to locate the records from that time period before they could proceed. There has been no indication of when the inquest

will be able to take place. However, after her conversation with Professor Stewart, Hayley and her family became even more determined to find out more information about the death. She said:

"It spurred us on. We were like 'Okay, we’re going to fight this fight’. We haven’t done it for any kind of litigation, we just want information. Article continues below "I

would love to know that, if they think it was from the heading of the football, that the information was really powerful, to make the authorities and people in football really start to pay

attention to the fact that you can get brain damage from heading a football."