Euro 2008 Players to Have Tickers Tested

December 1st, 2007 | by: Daryl | Comments Off

After too many tragic deaths in recent years UEFA are taking extra precautions to make sure every player at Euro 2008 has been thoroughly checked for heart problems. There’ll be cardiac screenings for every single player involved in Austria and Switzerland next summer in an attempt to catch problems with footballer’s tickers early, and team doctors will have to be on the bench and ready for action at all times, which hasn’t always been the case. Feels strange to think of professional footballers having heart conditions, but there’s a recent trend of exactly that.

Marc-Vivien Foé (pictured) collapsed and died while playing for Cameroon at the 2003 Confederations Cup, while Antonio Puerta collapsed while playing for Sevilla this year, passing away three days later. Both players deaths were caused by conditions involving their right ventricle, and could possibly have been avoided. Similar and equally tragic, though not as widely reported, were the deaths of Sutton Coldfield’s Matt Gadsby in 2006 and Benfica’s Hungarian international Miklós Fehér and São Caetano’s Serginho, both in 2004.

UEFA general secretary David Taylor explained the Euro 2008 setup thus:

Following a report from the chairman of our medical committee, we will require all players from all teams to undergo mandatory cardiological screening prior to the competition. Everybody in football is concerned that all possible precautions should be taken in terms of the medical well-being of players competing at such high levels of competition. We will also require team doctors to be on the bench at all matches.

In some ways it seems extra-cautious – and it seems high level clubs should be screening their players health and therefore aware of potential problems anyway – but if these extra precautions save a player’s life then they’re obviously worthwhile.

A happy ending example is Portsmouth’s Nigerian striker Nwankwo Kanu. When Kanu moved from Ajax to Inter Milan, the Italian club discovered a problem with Kanu’s heart during his medical. He had surgery later that year to replace an aortic valve and he’s still going strong in the Premiership today.