Puerta's parents to sue club?

Xavi6 · 10-10-2008 7:18am #1

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_18384.shtml

Parents of Antonio Puerta consider taking legal action against Sevilla Football Club

Oct 10, 2008 - 7:50 AM

The parents of Antonio Puerta, the Sevilla player who died after collapsing on the pitch during a game in August last year, are now reported to be considering taking legal action against the club for ‘moral damage’.

Interestingly the lawyer representing them, Juan Manuel Mauduit, was the President of Sevilla arch rival club Betis between the years 1979 and 1983. He says the parents accuse the club of doing nothing to avoid the death of their son after doctors knew that he suffered from arrhythmia, an irregular heart beat.

They are demanding 240,000 € compensation and claim to have a video filmed in the Sevilla dressing room recorded as attempts to revive Puerta were continuing. One of the club doctors is alleged to say in the video that ‘we’ve been saying that this would happen’.

Could be pretty damaging for Sevilla if the parents have a case.

Personally I can't understand why those checks aren't mandatory at all decent levels of sport in light of the Puerta, Feher, Foe and McAnallan deaths.

10-10-2008 8:25am

Well if they knew something was up then they shouldn't have been letting him play. This has happened far too often in recent years and simple mandatory checks at high level competitive sports woould save a lot of lives.

delija_sever029 · 10-10-2008 10:33am

I heard this news long ago,not big money and i suposed Sevilla will paid them but as they said they dont want and this will finish on the court....

Very stupid thing to happen and one life is lost....

Galvasean · 10-10-2008 12:55pm

It's pretty sick that they had him play fully aware that they were risking his life.
Sevilla should be barred from European competition and relegated from their league IMO.

Mitch Connor · 10-10-2008 1:11pm

You think Seville knew there were risks and Puerta didn't? If the risks were know, I am sure they were known by both parties and as such Seville are only as much to blame as Puerta himself imo.

astrofool · 10-10-2008 1:28pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Well if they knew something was up then they shouldn't have been letting him play. This has happened far too often in recent years and simple mandatory checks at high level competitive sports woould save a lot of lives.

Where are you getting "a lot of lives" from?

Given the numbers playing football, I'm amazed, that statistically, more people don't run into these problems. The health care for top athletes is as good as it can be, but, it cannot be perfect.

Mitch Connor · 10-10-2008 1:35pm

astrofool wrote: »

Where are you getting "a lot of lives" from?

Given the numbers playing football, I'm amazed, that statistically, more people don't run into these problems. The health care for top athletes is as good as it can be, but, it cannot be perfect.

i was going to say the same, but figured it wasn't worth the "Any amount of lives is too many" response this will no doubt receive.

astrofool · 10-10-2008 2:00pm

Tauren wrote: »

i was going to say the same, but figured it wasn't worth the "Any amount of lives is too many" response this will no doubt receive.

Don't worry, those responses are a quick way to work out who to put on the ignore filter due to lack of brain function when posting.

Seaneh · 10-10-2008 3:11pm

I don't think his parents are doing it for the money as they would have been well covered by his life insurence (mandatory for all preofessional athletes in spain IIRC).

I think they are doing it to try and stop this from happening again.

Fair play to them.

Burial · 10-10-2008 3:12pm

240,000 only? I would've thought they would get more...

10-10-2008 3:18pm

astrofool wrote: »

Where are you getting "a lot of lives" from?

Given the numbers playing football, I'm amazed, that statistically, more people don't run into these problems. The health care for top athletes is as good as it can be, but, it cannot be perfect.

Youn do know that more people than the ones mentioned here have died of SDS don't you? For example, Olympic sprinter Asafa Powell...his brother played soccer at state level in the US and he dropped dead very suddenly during a game. And about 2 weeks after McAnallan an Irish under 17 rugby international died from it. Just because it doesnt happen to a Foe or a Puerta every week doesnt mean its as rare as you seem to think it is.

Burial · 10-10-2008 3:21pm

Still, from the amount of people playing it's rare, right?

amacachi · 10-10-2008 3:21pm

Yeah, so if you're going to go down a couple of levels to find more people dying, think about how many people are involved at that level and above.

10-10-2008 3:23pm

Yea it's rare but the point is it's preventable. People get so dessensitized as to argue that the idea of mandatory screening isn't a good one....:rolleyes:

10-10-2008 3:25pm

amacachi wrote: »

Yeah, so if you're going to go down a couple of levels to find more people dying, think about how many people are involved at that level and above.

There are LOADS of examples of it. use google.

Burial · 10-10-2008 3:29pm

But relative to people playing the sport it's rare. It's not like every two games one guy is killed.

Xavi6 · 10-10-2008 3:38pm

Burial wrote: »

But relative to people playing the sport it's rare. It's not like every two games one guy is killed.

Jeez that's a very dismissive attitude.

That's like saying that yeah there might be thousand dying of aids every day but sure they're only in Africa which is a small portion of the world's population.

10-10-2008 3:40pm

Burial wrote: »

But relative to people playing the sport it's rare. It's not like every two games one guy is killed.

So that means we should just forget about it and accept it cos its rare rather than use the screens to help those who may suffer from it?

There are many rare but preventable illnesses in the world. Should we just let people die from them because the majority don't suffer from it?

Simple screening tests for this are not expensive. My cousin was found to have an irregular heartbeat and a simple key hole surgery was perfromed to correct his problem. He can't play competitive football anymore but he;s very much alive and well.

estebancambias · 10-10-2008 3:41pm

but something can be done about aids, fact is people die and in the grand scheme of things the amount of incidents in pro football is low.

astrofool · 10-10-2008 3:42pm

What exactly can be done?

The club knew he had it, he knew he had it, he wanted to play football anyway as the risk of him dying was probably quite small, it's a measured risk, people take them every day in everything they do, some people get unlucky, but that doesn't mean we should mandate that the rest get wrapped in cotton wool and confined to bed.

I've known of a few cases of SDS, the people that were hit by it were not the type that would ever stop their sport (running mostly).

These guys get screened for so many things every week, but there will always be something that isn't screened for because it's unknown about, these can then get added to the list, but jeez, someone just collapses and dies, there is very little anyone can do about it.

Xavi6 · 10-10-2008 3:44pm

astrofool wrote: »

What exactly can be done?

Easy. There's medication that can be taken to regulate the heartbeat once it's diagnosed.

Better than death I would've thought.

astrofool · 10-10-2008 3:48pm

Xavi6 wrote: »

Easy. There's medication that can be taken to regulate the heartbeat once it's diagnosed.

Better than death I would've thought.

But what do you check for? How often should you check? People are assumed healthy until symptoms present, even when it is known, the doctor's can get the diagnosis wrong, or try the wrong treatment (the right treatment being unknown at the time). Professional footballers get screened weekly for lots of different problems, I'd be absolutely confident that in most of these cases, death was entirely unpreventable.

These guys are worth millions to the club, it's in the clubs interests to keep them healthy.

10-10-2008 3:49pm

Xavi6 wrote: »

Easy. There's medication that can be taken to regulate the heartbeat once it's diagnosed.

Better than death I would've thought.

Or a very small corrective key hole surgery. It depends on the case and the problem. But it's preventable and anyone who argues that screening shouldnt be mandatory so that they at least know, are frankly, well, I won't finish that.

Xavi6 · 11-10-2008 4:57am

astrofool wrote: »

But what do you check for? How often should you check? People are assumed healthy until symptoms present, even when it is known, the doctor's can get the diagnosis wrong, or try the wrong treatment (the right treatment being unknown at the time). Professional footballers get screened weekly for lots of different problems, I'd be absolutely confident that in most of these cases, death was entirely unpreventable.

These guys are worth millions to the club, it's in the clubs interests to keep them healthy.

You check for a heart murmor and then you treat it with medication.

Puerta's parents to sue club?

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