Funeral for Italian football player in Bergamo

The funeral of Livorno midfielder Piermario Morosini took place on Thursday in his hometown of Bergamo. The 25-year-old died on Saturday after collapsing on the pitch during a Serie B game. He is believed to have died of a heart attack.

His death came less than a month after Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch during an FA Cup match in England. His heart stopped for 78 minutes, and he only lived because of life-saving interventions on the field.

The two-cases highlighted the danger to top-level athletes from heart conditions. The majority of sudden deaths are due to congenital cardiac malformations, such as Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. These can run in the family. There are usually no symptoms before a heart attack, but certain screening methods can often detect problems.

“In individuals who are either born with one of these abnormalities, or acquired it, these can be detected … not all but in many of them, with an electrocardiogram and an echo-scan of the heart,” said Keith Fox, the Duke of Edinburgh Professor of Cardiology of the University of Edinburgh.

He told Vatican Radio preventative screening programmes should be made mandatory at the top level of sport.

“For professional athletes, absolutely, I think they should be screened before they get into the programme,” he said. “For other people who engage in competitive athletics and sports below that level, I think the critical thing is knowing whether they’ve got a family history of heart rhythm problems, or collapses, or sudden deaths in the family, and that should trigger similar screening.”

Listen to the full interview by Charles Collins with Dr. Fox: