FIFA Chief Medical Officer Jiri Dvorak is to "ask football's world governing body to implement tougher rules on stadium medical care," according to Piers Edwards of the BBC. His comments "come in the wake of the death of Cameroon's Patrick Ekeng." The 26-year-old died of a suspected heart attack on May 6 playing for Dinamo Bucharest in Romania, "with the ambulance that treated him having no defibrillator." Dvorak said, "At professional football matches, there should be an automatic external defibrillator (AED) on the sidelines and staff adequately trained to use it." Following the death of another Cameroonian, Marc-Vivien Foe, in '03, FIFA "ensured that all of its international competitions take place in stadiums with sufficient medical equipment." Dvorak: "We also have to see that competitions at national levels have the same standard of care." Following Ekeng's death, his agent Hasan Anil Eken proposed a new ruling called the "Eken'g Rule" in which he called on FIFA to "make small hospitals a mandatory requirement for every stadium." Ekeng's medical assistance is "currently subject to an inquiry by prosecutors in Romania after the ambulance company was heavily criticised by the country's Interior Ministry." Dvorak has "welcomed Eken's proposal for better facilities inside a stadium but suggests logistical and financial concerns rule it out as a possibility." He said, "The mini-hospital is a good idea, but this is not feasible to establish all around the world. Having a defibrillator and educated staff is currently sufficient to deal with the situation" (BBC, 5/16).
