National soccer associations should carry out more screening as part of the fight against sudden cardiac death in players across the world, soccer’s world governing body FIFA said on Saturday.
Several footballers have died as a result of sudden heart failure in recent years and Spanish players called in August for an improvement in tests after Espanyol’s Dani Jarque collapsed and died from heart failure aged just 26.
“Our purpose is to enlarge what FIFA is doing. We give the example but now we ask all the national associations to follow,” Michel D’Hooghe, chairman of the FIFA Medical Committee, said on the sidelines of FIFA’s medical conference in Zurich.
“It is clear that in some national associations professional players are correctly examined before the season. It is not so that we have to ask everyone, but lets try to make a general rule of it,” he said.
ASSESSMENT
FIFA has so far recommended that pre-tournament medical assessment is carried out at its international events, but this has yet to made compulsory.
FIFA first did pre-tournament medical assessments at the World Cup in 2006 and the 32 squads at next year’s World Cup in South Africa will all be screened ahead of the finals.
Although playing soccer can help to prevent cardiovascular disease, taking part in competitive sports can act as a trigger for sudden cardiac death.
Ninety percent of deaths have happened in front of fans either during training sessions or at matches, FIFA said in its Football for Health report.
“The international football community had to witness such tragedy when Marc Vivien Foe died on the pitch during the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2003,” FIFA said in the report.
ANNUAL TEST
In Italy, an annual clinical test is required by law before athletes can take part in competitive sports. Screening involves taking a general history, a physical examination and a resting electrocardiogram (ECG).
“The best example is what the Italians have done,” D’Hooghe said. “Thanks to good pre-competition medical assessment they found the great majority of the heart problems and they could avoid catastrophes. It went from nine deaths to one over the last 10 years.”
He said it would not be possible to put tests in place for all of the 260 million players across the world, saying: “This is materially impossible and this is financially impossible.”
“But at least we could ask all our national associations that the players who are professionals, who play in tournaments with their national team, who play in competitions of their confederation, like in Europe the UEFA Cup, the Champions League, would be subjected to such examinations,” D’Hooghe said.
“This is only a first step. Of course, it will cost some money but I think it’s worth it as it will save some lives,” he said.
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