Football’s Real Disease
Sunday, September 7, 2008
When a group of Napoli fans laid waste to a train on their way to Rome, it kicked off once again the debate about violence and Italian football. With it came the usual wailing and moralizing on why more needed to be done to fight football’s disease. Futile talk that will almost inevitably lead to nothing.
Stefano Borgonovo is faced an altogether different battle. The man whose muscles wore out defenders allowing a young Roberto Baggio to shine for Fiorentina and who scored the winner against Bayern Munich that put AC Milan in the Champions Cup final in 1990 is still 44 years old yet it would be hard to tell that by looking at him.
Confined to a bed and unable to talk, his only means of communication is through an electronic device. It is a shocking sight but a common one for those who are struck with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurological disorder characterized by the slow wasting away of the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord which is also known as Gehrig’s disease.
That Borgonovo was ill had been rumoured for quite some time yet few were aware of the extent of his condition. That was revealed during an interview on Sky Italia to announce a friendly between Fiorentina and AC Milan on the 8th of October with the aim of raising funds for Borgonovo’s own foundation that will in turn pass them over to researchers working on a cure for the disease.
Most of the talking was done by Stefano’s wife Chantal and who has been with him ever since the two met when they were fifteen years old. “At first I thought that it was a nervous tick, then a neurologic professor told us of the reality,” she said, recalling when the first symptoms of the disease were emerging back in October of 2005.
“Everyone knew that something was up but at first we didn’t want to talk about it we were in total denial. His hands, his arms, his legs, he used to lose something each day, he was in free fall yet we tried to live as if nothing was up.”
Eventually, there was no hiding so now Stefano has decided to make his disease public so as to give life to this friendly wit the aim of “using Stefano’s popularity to talk about ALS, to help those who aren’t as well off as us, to raise funds for researches and, who knows, perhaps one day finding a cure.”
Yet, Borgonovo isn’t the only former footballer who has been struck by this desease: in a judicial inquest handled by the Turin judge Raffaele Guariniello, it has already killed 39 players.
The links between ALS and sport are very real as the research of Dr. Gabriele Mora, from the Salvatore Maugeri Foundation and that of Professor Adriano Chiò of the department of Neuroscience in Turin has shown: "We did our research on 7,325 Italian footballers. Statistically when you have such a small sample the incidence of ALS should be around 0.5 to 0.7 percent meaning that, at best, we should have found one person with the disease. Instead we found eight. Too many.”
Dr Mora warns that "I don’t feel comfortable in defining ALS as a football disease. However, the ball allied with other factors could be enough to kick it off”
What factors? “Genetic, repetitive traumas to the legs, intensive physical activity, being in contact with pesticides used to maintain pitches, the abuse of pain killing medicine. .."
Another interesting detail uncovered by Chio’ and Mora’s research has been the role of those struck with the disease: midfielders are the most at risk. "Midfielders run more than others, they get hit by countless tackles and they have the tendency of over-pushing themselves. It isn’t a coincidence that no goalkeepers have ever had this disease and that there are no known cases in basketball and cycling.” ASL, on the other hand, is common in American Football and “we’re now looking into rugby,” Mora concluded.
For Borgnovo and his family, including five year old daughter Gaia, that is of little comfort. “I’m angry with (Gianluca) Pessotto who has written a book to tell how he wanted to die whilst I’m here wanting to live.”
“He’s a fighter,” says Chantal. “He has always been. Hard? It is worse than hard. Yet I’m convinced that it isn’t over for us. We live day by day. Our future isn’t written yet.” Do they feel that Borgonovo could be the first to recover from the disease? “Yes” he says.
Stefano Borgonovo is faced an altogether different battle. The man whose muscles wore out defenders allowing a young Roberto Baggio to shine for Fiorentina and who scored the winner against Bayern Munich that put AC Milan in the Champions Cup final in 1990 is still 44 years old yet it would be hard to tell that by looking at him.
Confined to a bed and unable to talk, his only means of communication is through an electronic device. It is a shocking sight but a common one for those who are struck with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurological disorder characterized by the slow wasting away of the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord which is also known as Gehrig’s disease.
That Borgonovo was ill had been rumoured for quite some time yet few were aware of the extent of his condition. That was revealed during an interview on Sky Italia to announce a friendly between Fiorentina and AC Milan on the 8th of October with the aim of raising funds for Borgonovo’s own foundation that will in turn pass them over to researchers working on a cure for the disease.
Most of the talking was done by Stefano’s wife Chantal and who has been with him ever since the two met when they were fifteen years old. “At first I thought that it was a nervous tick, then a neurologic professor told us of the reality,” she said, recalling when the first symptoms of the disease were emerging back in October of 2005.
“Everyone knew that something was up but at first we didn’t want to talk about it we were in total denial. His hands, his arms, his legs, he used to lose something each day, he was in free fall yet we tried to live as if nothing was up.”
Eventually, there was no hiding so now Stefano has decided to make his disease public so as to give life to this friendly wit the aim of “using Stefano’s popularity to talk about ALS, to help those who aren’t as well off as us, to raise funds for researches and, who knows, perhaps one day finding a cure.”
Yet, Borgonovo isn’t the only former footballer who has been struck by this desease: in a judicial inquest handled by the Turin judge Raffaele Guariniello, it has already killed 39 players.
The links between ALS and sport are very real as the research of Dr. Gabriele Mora, from the Salvatore Maugeri Foundation and that of Professor Adriano Chiò of the department of Neuroscience in Turin has shown: "We did our research on 7,325 Italian footballers. Statistically when you have such a small sample the incidence of ALS should be around 0.5 to 0.7 percent meaning that, at best, we should have found one person with the disease. Instead we found eight. Too many.”
Dr Mora warns that "I don’t feel comfortable in defining ALS as a football disease. However, the ball allied with other factors could be enough to kick it off”
What factors? “Genetic, repetitive traumas to the legs, intensive physical activity, being in contact with pesticides used to maintain pitches, the abuse of pain killing medicine. .."
Another interesting detail uncovered by Chio’ and Mora’s research has been the role of those struck with the disease: midfielders are the most at risk. "Midfielders run more than others, they get hit by countless tackles and they have the tendency of over-pushing themselves. It isn’t a coincidence that no goalkeepers have ever had this disease and that there are no known cases in basketball and cycling.” ASL, on the other hand, is common in American Football and “we’re now looking into rugby,” Mora concluded.
For Borgnovo and his family, including five year old daughter Gaia, that is of little comfort. “I’m angry with (Gianluca) Pessotto who has written a book to tell how he wanted to die whilst I’m here wanting to live.”
“He’s a fighter,” says Chantal. “He has always been. Hard? It is worse than hard. Yet I’m convinced that it isn’t over for us. We live day by day. Our future isn’t written yet.” Do they feel that Borgonovo could be the first to recover from the disease? “Yes” he says.
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