Ex-international, Dimeji Lawal has appealed to Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and the League Management Company (LMC) to introduce random medical test of players before any League match as a way of checking the incidence of players collapsing and dying on field of play.
According to him, it’s neccessary for managers of the country’s League to test players for drug use, low or high blood pressure or heart related disease in order to prevent players dying on the pitch.
“I’m disturbed with the rate players are collapsing and dying on the field of play during Nigerian Professional Football League NPFL matches. I am not a Medical Doctor or health worker but am aware that most of these deaths are caused by heart attack and that’s why it’s neccessary that the NFF and LMC must introduce random text of players for both drug use and heart related diseases.
“The advantage of this is that such sad incidences could be prevented before it happens because any player without good health condition will not be allowed to play”,he explained.
Dimeji Lawal noted that the LMC must also ensure that teams have qualified medical personnel attached to them as is done in Europe and other parts of the World as not doing this will continue to expose players and officials to uneccessary risk.
“It’s also important for the various teams to have qualified medical personnel attached to them and a well equiped functional ambulance made available at match venues by the home team, failure of which will attract severe sanction as that’s the only way to avoid exposing players to avoidable deaths”, he concluded.
