Editorial: Subject All Sportmen To Medical Tests!

The unfortunate passing away of Bartholomew Yeboah, a football player with Kumasi-based Kessben Football Club has brought to the fore the immediate need for the Professional League Board (PLB), the Ghana Football Association (GFA), the National Sports Council (NSC) and all stakeholders to ensure the introduction of strict medical tests for our sportsmen. Bartholomew Yeboah�s death follows in the wake of the sudden death in Sudan over the weekend of Endurance Idahor, a Nigerian players plying his trade with El-Merreikh, a football team in that country. GO also recalls the death under similar circumstances of Sam Okwaraji another Nigerian football star who was plying his trade in Europe and the not too recent case of Cameroonian player Marc Vivienne Foe. Early this year, a veteran hockey player, Nii Akwei Ankrah also collapsed at the National Hockey Pitch and eventually died at a hospital in Accra where he was rushed to for treatment. There may possibly be more instances of sudden death of sportsmen, some of which may not have come to serious attention. However, the latest incident which has occurred in Ghana gives cause for concern and offers an opportunity for all stakeholders to rethink the need for continuous and sustained medical checks on all sportsmen. Relating this call to Ghana football, we urge the football clubs and all the regulators to introduce pre-season medical tests for all registered players. Unlike in Europe and elsewhere where football players are subjected to strict medicals before being signed on, the same cannot be said of our football leagues at the various tiers of association football. The case of Nwankwo Kanu whose life was virtually saved when it was discovered at a medical test prior to joining one of the many teams he played for in Europe that he had a heart condition is a justification for the introduction of strict medical tests for our sportsmen and women. Recently, the unpleasant experience of Prince Tagoe with Hoffenheim in Germany also justifies why our sportsmen and women ought to be checked rigorously for their own safety. As we await the outcome of the untimely passing on of Bartholomew Yeboah, we console his family, Kessben F/C, the entirety of Ghana�s football fraternity and pray for the repose of the soul of the faithful departed. May our sportsmen and women be spared such untimely deaths.