State funeral for Marc-Vivien Foe
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from July 2003.
Brought to you by
About 12,000 people lined the roads near Yaounde's main cathedral to catch a glimpse of the hearse carrying Foe's coffin, and thousands more watched on national television.
President Paul Biya was among the 100 congregated inside. Eight pallbearers placed Foe's flag-covered coffin at the alter where many stepped forward to deliver eulogies.
He was much more that a colleague or teammate. He was a brother. We can't qualify this man who has just left us," said the captain of Cameroon's national team, Rigobert Song.
Foe "was an adorable person and adviser and supporter for me. It will be so difficult to bear this disappearance," Song said church goers openly wept. Foe was later buried on the outskirts of town, near a sports complex he was building to train younger soccer players.
Foe collapsed June 26 during a game against Colombia in the semifinal. round of the Confederations Cup and was pronounced dead 45 minutes later. Cameroon won the game, but lost 1-0 to defending champion France in the final.
Foe had eight goals in 64 appearances for Cameroon's national team. He played at the 1994 and 2002 World Cups and won the last two African championships with Cameroon. In France, he won the league championship with Lyon and Lens, and played at Olympique Lyon, the stadium where he died, from 2000 to 2002. France-Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe died of a heart problem when he collapsed during a Confederations Cup semi-final last month and no stimulants were found in his body, an autopsy showed Monday, according to a Reuters report.
The prosecutor in Lyon, the southern French city where 28-year-old Foe was carried off the pitch during Cameroon's 1-0 victory against Colombia on June 26, ruled out drugs or foul play and said he had found nothing abnormal.
"The death is from natural causes. No stimulant substances were found. The death was of cardiac origin," public prosecutor Xavier Richaud said, announcing the autopsy result. "It is hypertrophic cardio myopathy. It is the hyper development of the left ventricle, which was noticed during the first autopsy.
"I do not know that doctors knew he had heart problems," he added. An initial autopsy had failed to determine the exact cause of Foe's death. Toxicology tests carried out as part of the autopsy had been handed to an expert in Geneva for analysis before a definitive conclusion was reached.
"As far as blood and urine are concerned, the negative toxicology shows that he did not taking any stimulants... in the 72 hours before his death. An analysis of his hair shows that he did not take stimulants before (that time) or regularly," Richaud said.
