O'Donnell's passing sheds light on players' health

Phil O'Donnell died suddenly of a heart attack during a game last week, just the latest in a string of players who passed away while on the pitch. AP

MAILBAG Gabriele Marcotti will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Playing sports is good for your health. Playing professional sport often isn't.

Gianluca Vialli's words came to mind in the aftermath of the tragic and sudden death of Motherwell midfielder Phil O'Donnell, who collapsed during his club's match against Dundee United. The cause of O'Donnell's death was heart failure, and he joins the likes of Antonio Puerta, Miklos Feher and Marc-Vivien Foé on the sad list of footballers who passed away on the pitch in the prime of their careers.

In the aftermath of O'Donnell's death, the Professional Footballers' Association has asked that clubs do a better job screening players for heart conditions and, generally, do more to safeguard their health. It's a reasonable request to, hopefully, stave off something which is totally unreasonable: very fit and healthy young men dying on the job.

At the professional level, however, the onus should be on players, not clubs, to safeguard the health of footballers. In fact, this applies to pretty much every sport. A few months ago, I sat down with Art Caplan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the world's foremost bio-ethicists and a consultant to FIFA. He made a very obvious -- but, sadly, often ignored -- point: When it comes to a player's health, there is a potential conflict of interest between the athlete and his employer.

"The doctors work for the clubs, their duty is to maximize the ability of the player to get the job done," he says. "It's the 'double agent' problem. They're expected to do what's good for the club, not necessarily the player. And that may mean clearing a player to play when he's carrying an injury or telling him to play through the pain."

"A medical doctor should protect the long-term health of the player. But the club is only interested in the player's health as it relates to his playing career. The athletes are often young and stupid and they don't know any better, they don't think about getting their own doctor for a second opinion. And the clubs prey upon the relative ignorance of the athlete. In fact, they milk those images of courage and virtue. As for the public, they don't care what a player's body might be like once they retire."

Anybody who has been around former athletes for any length of time will tell you just how beat up they tend to be: gimpy knees, bad backs, migraines. They look like walking wounded. Yet, these are guys who exercised and ate right for 20-odd years.

The average life expectancy for former NFL players is around 55. I have no idea what it is for footballers, but I doubt it's much more than 65, significantly lower than the average in most first-world countries.

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