THE HERALD REPORTS

Footballers are dying because they are treated like livestockDARRYL BROADFOOT, Chief Football Writer September 03 2007
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TEARFUL FAREWELL: Sevilla's players accompany the coffin containing the body of their former team-mate Antonio Puerta at his funeral last week. Picture: EPA
"The athletic development is not natural; much better the ordinary healthy condition of the body" - Hippocrates

The death last week of Antonio Puerta, the Seville full-back, has evoked global sympathy from what UEFA regard as the "football family". The sudden fatality of a 22-year-old athlete seemingly at the peak of physical condition follows a spate of traumas and tragedies that should be regarded as more than freakish coincidence.

The relentless rise in demands and expectations, in direct correlation to the riches available in the £1bn-a-year industry, is claiming casualties at an alarming rate. Frankly, if the recent tragedies occurred inside a ring, and not within the dimensions of a football field, the moral majority would be dusting down their placards and lobbying governments to Ban This Boxing Barbarism.

Puerta's life-support machine was switched off last Tuesday after he suffered postanoxic encephalopathy - in layman's terms a cardiac arrest that led to multiple failures of his vital organs - during his team's 4-1 win against Getafe in La Liga. This, only three days after passing a routine medical examination along with the rest of his team-mates.

Worryingly, this was not an isolated incident and, on the contrary, hints at a deepening problem of physiological burnout afflicting professional footballers. As the Puerta family mourned for their son, Chaswe Nsofwa, a 26-year-old Zambian, was pronounced dead in Israel. His body simply gave up during a gruesome training drill for his club, Hapoel Beersheva, conducted in temperatures peaking at 104 Fahrenheit.


Closer to home, Anton Reid, a young apprentice at Walsall, collapsed and died with the cause yet to be determined. In the modern technological age, Puerta's fatal suffering remains chronicled on YouTube. Clive Clarke watched the harrowing images with his Leicester City team-mates before their Carling Cup tie against Nottingham Forest. The game was abandoned at half-time after the defender collapsed in the dressing room; his heart was revived by paramedics.

In response, FIFA's chief medical officer, Jiri Dvorak, has called for mandatory heart monitoring. It is a laudable but futile step. At present, footballers are simply highly-paid livestock in a trade where the pursuit of pound notes takes precedence over health and well-being. "There are a thousand cardiac deaths a year in sport," said Dvorak. "They occur due to different underlying diseases."

Greed is the underlying disease and the unsustainable demands will continue to take a toll. In the last five years alone, Marc-Vivien Foe, Samuel Okwaraji, Miklos Feher, Marcio Dos Santos and Hugo Cunha all died suddenly.

"If we do not heed the warnings, and that's what they are, the situation could become critical," said Tom Lucas, one of Scotland's foremost physiologists and sports scientists.

"We are asking modern footballers to become world-class middle-distance runners, even marathon runners in some cases. With that, there is the misapprehension that because a player costs £20m he is immune to injury. It's crazy."

This article was originally posted on 3-Sep-2007, 07:12 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 3-Sep-2007, 07:16.