MOGAMAD ALLIE: Hereditary heart condition forces Zambian star to quit football

One cannot but feel for Enock Mwepu, the Zambia international who was forced to retire from football this week because of a hereditary heart condition.

The 24-year-old Brighton midfielder, who had his best footballing years ahead of him, made his last appearance for the club in their 5-2 home win over Leicester City on  September 4.

He was playing against childhood friend Patson Daka, who, together with Glasgow Rangers striker Fashion Sakala and Mwepu were members of the Zambia side that won the 2017 Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations on home soil.

Nicknamed “Computer” because of his ability to read the game, Mwepu was due to have captained Chipolopolo in their friendly international against Mali two weeks ago, but as fate would have it, he fell ill before the game and spent four days in a Bamako hospital.

It was on his return to England that further tests revealed that the midfielder, who hails from the modest Lusaka township of Chambishi, faced an extremely high risk of suffering a potentially fatal cardiac event if he continued living his dream of playing in the English Premier League.

The sad result of the diagnosis is the premature retirement of a player who was a valuable member of an exciting Brighton side that have made a solid start to the new season. If there is to be a positive coming out of this gloomy picture, it is that Mwepu’s condition was diagnosed before he could suffer what might have been a potentially life-threatening cardiac event sometime soon.

The club said in a statement that the condition he suffers from manifests later in life and may not be evident in regular cardiac screening. Playing sport would worsen the condition, so for his own safety the talented Zambian wisely heeded the medical advice to bring an immediate end to his career.

And what a promising career it was. He was vice-captain of the Zambia under-20 side at the 2017 World Cup in Korea, was signed almost immediately afterwards by RB Salzburg, with whom he won the league title in each of the four seasons he spent with the club, and also three Austrian Cups.

It was his eye-catching performances in central midfield for the 19-time Austrian Bundesliga champions that persuaded erstwhile Brighton manager Graham Potter to make the Zambian his first signing for a club record fee of £20m at the start of last season.

Mwepu is keen on continuing his involvement in the game in some capacity and hopefully he will be able to take up some role in the future. 

The latest heart-related incident again highlights the need for footballers to be regularly tested. Recent incidents involved Christian Eriksen, who survived a major scare while playing for Denmark against Finland at last year’s European Championships, and former Mali international Ousmane Coulibaly, who suffered a heart attack on the pitch in January while playing for Al Wakrah in the Qatar Stars League.

Statistics suggest that a disproportionately high number of African players have heart irregularities, which are often only discovered when they join European clubs, who have more sophisticated testing regimes at their disposal.

So it was that former Nigeria captain Nwankwo Kanu, who had already won the European Cup with Ajax in 1995 and an Olympic gold medal the following year, was found to have a faulty aortic valve in his heart while undergoing a medical check-up ahead of signing for Inter Milan.

Fortunately, a successful operation in the US allowed him to enjoy a long and fulfilling career that included two FA Cups and two league titles with Arsenal, one of which was as a member of the “Invincibles” squad that went through the 2003/2004 season unbeaten.

Similarly, the Ivorian players Adama Niambele and Yussouf Kone failed medicals with Italian Serie A clubs because they were found to have “enlarged hearts” that would potentially put them at risk.

While DR Congo-born Fabrice Muamba survived the heart attack he suffered while playing for Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham Hotspur in March 2012, many other African players were not so lucky.

The first professional player known to have died on the field was former Nigeria international midfielder Sam Okwaraji. He collapsed on a hot August afternoon in 1989 in a World Cup qualifier against Angola.

Okwaraji’s compatriots Amir Angwe, John Ikoroma, Bobsam Elejieko and Endurance Idahor, Cameroon internationals Marc-Vivien Foe and Patrick Ekeng, the Ivory Coast’s Cheick Tiote, Zambia’s Chaswe Nsofwa, Gabon’s Moise Brou Apanga, Chad’s Lokissimbaye Loko, Tunisia’s Hedi en Rekhissa and Liberia’s Ambrose Wieh lost their lives due to heart-related problems.

South Africans will remember the passing of former Burundian international Papy Faty in April 2019. Defying medical advice from his former club BidVest Wits to quit the game because of his heart condition, Faty died while playing in Eswatini.

Prof Sanjay Sharma, the world-renowned London-based sports cardiologist, told the BBC in 2017 that research done in the UK by the Football Association on young players showed that the death rate for white footballers is one in 25,000 compared to one in 4,000 for black players.

According to Sharma, the evidence he looked at suggests black sports players are more likely to suffer from cardiac arrest because the wall of the left side of the heart seems to thicken more than players of other ethnicities.

If there is one lesson the Premier Soccer League and SA clubs can learn from the aforementioned cases, it is that they need to tighten up their medical screening and testing to ensure they avert any potential tragedy.