Manchester United centre half Raphael Varane is urging footballers to take concussions seriously.

The Frenchman has spoken about his personal experiences with head injuries in the sport.

Varane indicated that he had missed games this season after asking for an assessment of his condition.

He stated to L'Equipe: “I don't know if I will live to be 100, but I know that I have damaged my body."

On this season, he suggested: “During a match, I performed a series of headers, and the days that followed, I felt abnormal fatigue as well as severe eye fatigue, and I reported to the staff that I was not fit to play.

“They strongly recommended that I not play, I took a test from a doctor, the results of which I passed on to the staff, which meant that I did not play the following match. And when I felt better, I started training again.

“But if I hadn't asked to take these tests, I probably would have been lined up a few days later. And to be honest, I still feel bad that I didn't play the next game because of a migraine."

He added about an incident with France in 2014: “I finished the match but I'm in 'autopilot' mode. If someone had spoken to me at that time, I don't even know if I would have been able to respond."

He continued: “I was not in my normal state and so I was taken care of. I had lost weight because I was dehydrated, I was out of shape but played because it was a World Cup quarter-final."