The sudden death of Ivory Coast midfielder Cheik Tiote on Monday increased the number of high-profile African players who have collapsed and died while playing football, almost all of them suffering a form of cardiac arrest.
There has been no official confirmation of the cause of the former Newcastle United player's fatal collapse while training with his Beijing Enterprises club in China.
But the circumstances are similar to those in which many other players have died.
Nigeria's Samuel Okwaraji was the first major on-field casualty in Africa.
He collapsed while playing for the Super Eagles in a World Cup qualifier against Angola in Lagos in 1989.
An autopsy showed the 25-year-old, who was a law student and on the books of VfB Stuttgart in Germany, had an enlarged heart and high blood pressure.
His death left the continent shocked but there was a much wider audience in Lyon, France, in 2003 when Cameroon midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe fell in the centre circle 15 minutes from the end of Cameroon's Confederations Cup semi-final with Colombia.
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