Topic: SOCCER: AFRICAN FOOTBALLERS AND HEART ATTACKS IS THERE ANY RELATION (Read 694 times)

Now you mentioned money, I suddenly thought of Latino boxers. Most really train hard and see sports as their only way out of poverty. With stakes that high, that can cause them to abuse their bodies too much.

As for doping, there was no mention of it in relation to these players though I suppose that came to mind for some people reading this. Using those could also increase the chances of having health complications when combined with the physically-taxing activity.

Most (not all) of these cases happen to soccer players from central-west Africa for simple reason. They are overrepresented in the higher echelons of this sport. Way overrepresented, if you look at the rest of the world population.

Otherwise, soccer, perhaps more so than many other sports is dependant on stamina, boosting long term endurance through steroid abuse is terrible idea as it further burdening organ by far most taxed by it - heart. Even small deformity or small genetic defect can then kill you with conjuction with physical stress and drugs.

Big sports are big money and therefore coaches care little for the health of the athletes. Them and sponsors interested in the result. Nobody cares about the athlete better than himself. It seems to me that they themselves have to monitor their health.

All players are prone to heart attacks or any injuries. Due to the fact that they spend a lot of hard workout before and after the game. Our body is not a machine, If it's over used it has a great chance that this will affect your health. To much workout or training can lead to death.
The nationality doesn't have a relation towards Heart Attacks that a footballer can suffer during and after the game.

This is going to be the track that I'm going to be following with my response, you can't just pinpoint an area and say oh look over here they're going to be experiencing this issue when most of the world is having the same problem when it comes to the sports players that are working insane amounts every single day. The people that usually aren't even pros are going to be experiencing the health problems as well due to the fact that they're going to be playing in a lot more games to be able to make some money for their famlies and lifestyle.

Though, this is an issue with all sports and such so not true in the least.

Not only African footballers dies after heart attacks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_footballers_who_died_while_playing
As you can see, football players from all continents are dying after heart attacks and Africans isn't majority.
But I'm surprised about one thing. Before signing contract, players have to pass medical check. So, how doctors didn't notice that is something wrong with athlete heart?
Also, I remember that when Meldonium was added to list of banned substances, one professor said that it will result death of many athletes. I don't know is theee any relations or not.

I think this is mostly due to age, Most African players lie about their age when they start their career, so when they should be retiring due to their old age, they would be still playing and this might not be good for their health. They should be having checkups more regularly to avoid these kind of things.

It may be a combination of different factors, but I think that the intake of drugs is the major cause. The low incidence among the European and American players can be attributed to the availability of better quality drugs.

Yeah, I think it's unfair to ascribe this to any specific nationality. This is something every athlete struggle with. I believe many would still want to play fairly but given that they "know" that many others in the field are doing it, the temptation to dope increases. In that case, the athlete dopes not because he/she want to have an unfair advantage but because he/she wants to stay in the sport and it seems that doping is the only way to even out the field with others who are "doing it".

Yes, most of those deaths are due to the abuse of drugs and doping. I think there's no correlation between the country origin and the deaths, because many European and American palyers died in similar circumstances.

Doping, as well as too many matches played in a short period of time cause these tragedies.

Africans usually have a habit of consuming performance enhancing drugs, without thinking about the consequences. These drugs have serious side effects, and must be consumed only after careful consultations with the physicians. Also, some of the other drugs such as Viagra are known to cause an increase in the probability of a heart attack.

My conclusion here is that African football players should have screen better before letting them play football. I think the lack of medical facility that will help them screen and detect the heart problem early contributed to their early deaths. We know that stress of playing football, and it may have somewhat a factor to the cause of death also.

Another thing I'm looking is that maybe, African has a high percentage of having a congenital heart issue. I don't know if their is a study done about it, but it looks to me that it is also genetics as well. If someone can find a study please do share so that we can see if it has contributed to their deaths.

Its really unfortunate that series of death that have happened in recent times for footballers is really coming from the African side. In as much as its cannot be directly linked but at the same time, it calls for deep reflection of what is really going on which I feel its unconnected to preexisting health conditions that have been existing even before they made their way to European countries in looking for greener pastures. Hopefully, this can be abated and things will take a good turn.

I don't play soccer but that is sad. This seem to be an issue in every sport now. IMHO anyone caught doping should be immediately banned and have any medal stripped off. What's the point of all the training if you're just gonna cheat your way to winning?

This happens not only with the African players. Such cases happen in Europe. Probably this is not due to genetics, and with the heavy physical loads experienced by the players. Health benefits brings physical education and sport takes away health.

The African footballers mostly have stout stature and tough physique and they are very good tacklers and ball jugglers. Most African countries have won junior world tournaments with Nigeria and Ghana leading the way but this success is yet to be replicated at the top most level, The FIFA world cup. This is a major discussion in Most African countries, whiles some think an African country will win the cup someday others argue the african players are not good enough but are able to win the under age tournaments because of age cheating. Just this week, barely a year to the FIFA world cup in Russia another African story broke in the media, this time around it was the death of another African footballer, Chiek Tiote at his club in the second tier of Chinese league. Initial reports suggest he suffered a heart failure. Immediately the story broke out an old rumor started taking shape again since this adds up to a number of about ten (10) professionals footballers from the Western and Central African origin suffering Heart Attack and dying in the process. it widely believed in Africa that most of this players get injected by their clubs to play and some also leave unhealthy lifestyles that leads to complications. But the numbers are alarming considering most of this occurrences are identified in players with Western-Central Africa origin. Mark Vivian Foe, Kanu, Nkeng, Tiote and many more. My question is; is this deaths related to genetic diversity in this west-central African players or is it just hard luck. Please every soccer fan here should make their voices heard