Fiorentina’s Edoardo Bove is the latest in a series of young and supposedly fit and healthy footballers to suffer dramatic collapses on the pitch.
The 22-year-old midfielder fell to the ground and was taken from the pitch by ambulance during his team’s Serie A match against Inter Milan on Sunday.
In moving scenes, players from both sides formed a ring around Bove as medical staff attended to him before rushing him to hospital.
Fiorentina released a statement detailing how Bove is ‘currently under pharmacological anesthesia and admitted to intensive care’.
The club continued: ‘the first cardiological and neurological tests carried out have ruled out acute damage to the central nervous system and the cardiovascular system’.
As such, the reason for its collapse remains unknown at this stage, with experts saying such cases require time and extensive expertise to determine the cause.
But Bo is not the only footballer who has fallen under such circumstances in recent years.
Uruguayan footballer Juan Izquierdo, 27, collapsed in August this year and later tragically died in hospital.
Fiorentina’s Edoardo Bove is the latest in a series of young and supposedly fit and healthy footballers to suffer dramatic collapses on the pitch. Bove imagined the warm-up before the match
In moving scenes, players from both sides formed a ring around Bove as medical staff attended to him before rushing him to hospital.
And Luton Town captain Tom Lockyer suffered a heart attack on the pitch last December, with his heart stopping for two and a half minutes.
This all follows Danish footballer Christian Eriksen’s famous collapse during a Euro 2020 match.
Despite conspiracy claims to the contrary, experts have consistently told MailOnline that these events, while tragic and rare, are not on the rise and that recent clusters of cases are coincidental.
It was eventually revealed that Izquierdo’s death was the result of a viral infection that put extra strain on his heart, causing it to beat in an irregular rhythm, medically known as arrhythmias.
Lockyer’s collapse was related to atrial fibrillation – a health condition that causes the heart to beat irregularly and abnormally faster and can cause a heart attack.
Meanwhile, Eriksen’s collapse was due to undetected ventricular fibrillation, another condition that leads to disruption of the heart rhythm.
Renowned experts on heart health problems in young athletes have told MailOnline that there has been no increase in deaths or even cases in general in recent years.
Anti-vax conspiracy theorists have been quick to highlight such collapses as ‘proof’ that Covid jabs have damaged the hearts of young people, despite there often being no evidence that the athletes in question had even had the vaccine.
Bove is not the only player to have a harrowing breakdown while playing. Uruguayan footballer Juan Izquierdo, 27, collapsed in August this year and later tragically died in hospital
Dr. Raghav Bhatia, research fellow at the globally respected cardiovascular clinical academic group at St George’s University of London – one of the world’s most renowned sites in this specialist branch of cardiology – previously told this website that there is ‘no evidence’ that such claims supported.
“A clear distinction must be made between peer-reviewed, robust medical literature and rumors or individual case reports, which can often be found on social media and can often represent misinformation,” he said.
He added that such cases that occur are often due to undetected heart problems, such as congenital heart problems that have been present since birth but have not yet caused any problems.
Although screening programs exist for athletes designed to detect such health problems, like any medical scan or test, they are not perfect and there is a chance that a small number of cases may slip through the cracks.
In Britain, the Football Association has mandatory tests carried out at the age of 16 for footballers, but later tests are only recommended.
Some cardiologists have called for this to change in the wake of recent player collapses with mandatory repeat testing once players reach their 20s and 30s.
Additional screening will not only help identify players with heart problems that may have initially slipped through the cracks, but will also help identify players who develop concerning heart conditions later in their careers.
Professor Guido Pieles, head of the Sports Cardiology Clinic at the Institute for Sport, Exercise and Health, who advocates more screening of athletes, previously said: ‘If a player is screened at the age of 16, we cannot guarantee that if he 29 is everything is still normal.’
Tom Lockyer (left months after the event) suffered cardiac arrest during a Premier League match (right), with his heart stopping for two and a half minutes
‘Some diseases come to light in the late twenties or thirties, which is why we also recommend longitudinal screening.’
Football governing bodies in other countries have different standards when it comes to screening.
Previous research has also shown that athletes who play so-called ‘start-stop’ or ‘stop-and-go’ sports, including football, which are characterized by bursts of demanding physical activity followed by relative inactivity, are more likely to develop heart problems .
This is due to the repeated sudden demands placed on the heart, which can lead to additional strain, exacerbating any heart problems a player may have.
Other cases of athletes collapsing on the field involve specific cases of an injury called commotio cordis.
This is where the chest experiences a high-velocity impact – usually a ball in a sporting context – that is so violent that it disrupts the nerve signals that regulate the heart rate.
Research has shown that there has not been a spike in sudden deaths among young athletes.
A study published last year, which examined two decades of data on American college sports, found that deaths fell by about 29 percent every five years.
Danish footballer Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest during the 2020 European Championship
Eriksen collapsed on the field in dramatic scenes in 2021. His collapse was later attributed to undetected ventricular fibrillation, another condition that leads to disruption of the heart rhythm.
Academics have attributed the decline to more effective screening systems for heart disease in young athletes over time, as well as wider access to emergency treatments such as on-site defibrillator kits.
Dr. Bhatia said data from Britain suggested a similar lack of sudden deaths.
‘IIn our experience of caring for young people, including athletes, from both a clinical and academic perspective, we have not seen an increase in the number of young deaths due to Covid or the vaccine,” he said.
Ge added that investigating cardiac deaths in young people takes both time and extensive expertise and that people should avoid speculating about the causes.
“Often the televised nature of such tragic events has far-reaching consequences for the individual, their families and the community as a whole,” he said.
‘Speculation is often a source of misinformation and can lead to unintended consequences.’
Professor Pieles has also stated that recent clusters of cases of field collapses are likely coincidental.
“At this point I would say this is still a coincidence,” he said.
“I don’t think we can say that this is suddenly increasing, I don’t think it is increasing especially in football.”