“That’s not normal”
Cancer deaths shake up former footballers
01/18/2023, 9:05 p.m
Within a few weeks, two former football professionals who were active in Italy for a long time in the 1990s died of cancer: Gianluca Vialli and Sinisa Mihajlovic. At that time, the players took masses of preparations. Now there are voices that fear a connection with the deaths.
After the cancer death of former star striker Gianluca Vialli and statements by his former teammate Dino Baggio, doping and the use of drugs in football are being discussed in Italy. “I think we have to examine the pharmaceutical substances that we were administered at the time,” said the former international and 1994 vice world champion of the “Gazzetta dello Sport”. “Maybe they were harmless, but maybe you’ll discover something there…”
Baggio recalled Vialli and former Serie A professional Sinisa Mihajlovic, with whom he had played and who had died of pancreatic and blood cancer. There is currently no evidence of a connection between taking preparations as football professionals and later illnesses. Nevertheless, the 51-year-old Baggio said: “I’m worried, I admit that. Many dead, all young people, it’s not normal. A serious investigation would be appropriate here.”
The former midfielder had used the term doping several times in a TV interview earlier in the week – he has since admitted that this was a mistake and that he did not mean prohibited substances. However, he and his teammates at Inter Milan, Juventus Turin and AC Parma were given “a considerable amount” of dietary supplements every day, including intravenously. “I never found out exactly what was injected into him,” said Baggio.
According to former players, it was common in Italian football in the 1990s to take large amounts of preparations. The team doctor from Juventus Turin even went to court because of this, after years of proceedings he was finally convicted of sports fraud – there was no doping law at the time.
Meanwhile, current Italy coach Roberto Mancini warned against making ill-considered statements about the death of his good friend Vialli. “You have to be careful there,” he said on Wednesday. Serious illnesses “unfortunately overtake former players and normal people,” said the ex-professional.