Honorary Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness said Wednesday he was “speechless” after Jamal Musiala’s second on-field collapse inside four days, calling the incident a “tragedy” and pledging to support the midfielder.
Musiala fell to the turf minutes after coming on during a pre-season friendly at Heidenheim on Tuesday, after a similar incident the previous Saturday in a match against RB Leipzig.
The 23-year-old Germany international revealed he is suffering from a “neurological disorder” which can lead to “temporary but treatable seizures”.
Hoeness said the incident left him “sitting on the couch speechless”.
“The fact it happened again four days later really shocked me. I was speechless, which rarely happens to me,” he told Germany’s RTL and Sky channels.
“I go to bed thinking of him and wake up in the morning thinking of him. We support Jamal unconditionally.”
Hoeness said the club were aware of Musiala’s condition and had received written confirmation from specialists “that, in their view, there are no concerns regarding Jamal engaging in high-performance sports”.
“We’ve been sleeping a little more soundly since receiving that confirmation,” he said.
Maria Ilyas-Feldmann, the deputy chief physician of the Department of Neurology at Germany’s Ruppin-Brandenburg University Hospital, told AFP subsidiary SID more information was needed about the condition and how it will impact his professional career.
“Based on the publicly available information, it is impossible to determine the specific cause in Mr. Musiala’s case,” Ilyas-Feldmann said in an interview on Wednesday.
“If it is an epileptic seizure, a temporary change occurs in the electrical activity of groups of nerve cells in the brain.
“Depending on the brain regions involved, this can manifest, for example, as a brief ‘blank spell’ or a disturbance of consciousness.”
Hoeness said Bayern would “have to learn how to deal with the situation”.
“It’s a problem first and foremost for the person Jamal, and also for the club in the medium term. We’re all speechless, we weren’t prepared for this.”
Musiala, who joined Bayern as a teenager from Chelsea’s academy, extended his contract with the German giants until 2030 last year.
Former Bayern forward Hoeness, 74, stepped down as club president in 2019 but continues to play an influential role at the German champions.
AFP
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