Thursday, June 7, 2012

Blog #3: Soccer News

   Hi! This is Yu Yamanashi. As we are in the middle of the World Cup Qualifying Tournament, I came across an interesting and possibly shocking news article that I would like to introduce to you. The title is, "Fifa alarmed at widespread 'abuse' of painkillers ".(Matt McGrath, 5 June 2012, BBC News) Please click on the title to jump to the BBC webpage for the full article and to find out what happened to the player in the photo below.

 Ivan Klasnic

   To make the long story short, this article is about the Fifa medical officer and several doctors alerting that too many soccer players are taking too much painkillers too frequently. The article points out that the major factors in the growing use of painkillers in soccer are the pressure on team doctors to get injured players back on the pitch quickly and players to stay on the pitch. Some problems induced by overdose painkillers are damage on the kidney and liver from strong drugs, irreversible destruction of tissue from numbed alarm systems and elevated risk of heart disorder. What concerns the Fifa medical officer the most is the attitude being passed on to younger players.
  
   What do you think about this article? Do you think there is an effective solution to this problem? I was very sad  to hear that so many players were too wrapped up in playing to care about their health. I also felt that with playing being their job, it wouldn't be easy to just take away painkillers from the players. In my opinion, the best way to improve the situation is to act upon supporters and spectators instead of the players and doctors themselves. This is because the major factor in this problem, the pressure to keep playing, is coming from the expectations of supporters and spectators. Also, players wouldn't be able to ignore if the very fans they are supposed to give hope and dreams to pleaded them to stop abusing painkillers. I hope soccer players would soon come to realize that by abusing painkillers, they are hurting the feelings of many soccer fans.


Yu Yamanashi

2 comments:

  1. Hi, Yu. This is Akane. I was surprised to know such reality in soccer game. As you mentioned, it is not good solution to ban the medicines easily. I hope all people related to soccer game care about players' health more.

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  2. I can hardly wait for the World Cup - sleepless nights await me!
    Ms. MacGregor

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