“Only the Lord can decide”
Professional soccer player collapses and dies on the pitch
November 11, 2023, 8:49 p.m
Raphael Dwamena stormed for several European clubs for years with heart problems and the professional footballer had his defibrillator removed. Now the Ghanaian professional collapses – and dies on the pitch.
A game in the highest Albanian football league ends tragically: As several Albanian media outlets unanimously report, striker Raphael Dwamena collapsed during a game for his club KF Egnatia and died on the pitch. In the game against Partizan, Dwamena collapsed after 24 minutes. The first aid provided by teammates and opponents was unsuccessful. “Despite the immediate intervention of specialists and all subsequent efforts to bring him back to life, the footballer unfortunately died,” the association’s website said. The game was stopped when the score was 1:1. Dwamena was the top scorer in the Albanian league with nine goals. The Ghanaian professional was 28 years old. In recent years, Dwamena has played on her own responsibility.
Dwamena had already been diagnosed with heart problems in 2017, which prevented her from moving from the Swiss first division club FC Zurich to Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League. The doctors at FC Zurich, on the other hand, confirmed to Dwamena that his body would meet the requirements of professional play. The striker, who moved from Red Bull Ghana to Red Bull Salzburg in 2014 but was never able to establish himself there, continued his career in Switzerland, scored a lot of goals – and moved to UD Levante in 2018 for more than six million euros.
But in 2019 his heart problems became more acute, Dwamena had to take breaks from his loan club Real Zaragoza again and again and the doctors advised him to end his career immediately. But the eight-time Ghana international player continued to play and a defibrillator was inserted into him in 2020. Already in 2021, Dwamena, who was playing for FC Linz in Austria, collapsed in a game in the ÖFB Cup. “His defibrillator kicked in and the doctors were able to stabilize him quickly,” reported Linz’s manager Stefan Reiter at the time.
Dwamena, who stormed in Europe in Austria, Spain, Denmark and Switzerland, had his defibrillator removed again in 2022 – because he blamed it for his collapse. “I no longer trust the technology. I take all the risk on myself. If something happens, it’s my fault,” he told the Internet portal “20 Minutes” at the time. In hindsight, he ventured a bitter prediction to the “NZZ”: “I’ve been to so many doctors. Everyone says something different. I respect the opinions, the diagnoses. But I don’t take them seriously, sometimes I have to laugh. Only one can do that for me say that it is time to stop: the Lord,” Dwamena told the “NZZ” in October 2022.