FIFA to have ceremony to commemorate death of Marc-Vivien Foe before Confed Cup final

Foe ceremony to precede Confederations Cup final

JOHANNESBURG — Confederations Cup organizers will stage a pre-match ceremony before the final to commemorate the death of Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe.

Foe collapsed and died in the 2003 semifinals against Colombia and, after his death, was found to have a heart condition. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said Monday that the tragic event had since led to safety measures concerning international matches which now either have doctors on the bench or staff capable of using defibrillators.

“What is important is that since this (Foe) case, football has learned about the problem of cardiological disease,” Blatter said. “It’s impossible to control the millions and millions of football players. But in FIFA’s competitions, not only at the highest level, we are.”

Blatter also said that a survey of young players at a competition which served as preliminary to this year’s Under-17 World Cup in Nigeria had shown that 60 percent of the players had never seen a doctor.

“At a preliminary competition (in Algeria) …, we made cardiological tests we realized that over 60 percent of participating players had never seen a medical doctor. So we have to make a lot of work in order to prevent any such further tragedies,” Blatter said. “One of the players has been identified as having heart disease and he has been treated in the hospital here in South Africa.”

(This version CORRECTS location in final graf.)