By Samantha Putterman - Politifact
Danish footballer Christian Eriksen, 29, suddenly collapsed on the pitch on June 12, during a Euro 2021 match between the teams of Denmark and Finland.
Tournament organizers and the Danish football federation reported that Eriksen suffered cardiac arrest and remains deserted and stable in a Copenhagen hospital.
It was not long after Eriksen's collapse for information about an alleged link between the incident and the COVID-19 vaccine to begin circulating on the Internet.
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An Instagram post showed the image of a tweet that read: "Christian Eriksen, the Danish player who suddenly collapsed on the pitch, plays for Inter Milan. The chief doctor and cardiologist of that Italian team confirmed on an Italian radio station that Eriksen received the vaccine from Pfizer on May 31 ".
The now-deleted tweet came from Luboš Motl, a Czech physicist and blogger who has shared false information about COVID-19 and vaccines.
Other tweets claimed that the station the chief doctor spoke with was Radio Sportiva.
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But the post is not accurate.
Giuseppe Marotta, director of Inter Milan, the team where Eriksen plays, said that Eriksen
had not received any COVID-19 vaccine before his collapse
, nor had he contracted the disease.
Furthermore, Radio Sportiva denied having reported such a thing.
The post was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat fake news.
(Read more about Politifact's association with Facebook.)
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Eriksen suddenly collapsed in the 43rd minute of the first Group B match between Denmark and Finland, as he ran close to the line down the left wing after a Denmark throw-in.
His teammates gathered around him as medics treated them on the grass.
The game was stopped for more than an hour.
For a young athlete to experience cardiac arrest is not common, but it is not unprecedented either.
The rumor about Eriksen and the COVID-19 vaccine came amid reports of some cases of heart inflammation, called myocarditis and pericarditis, which developed mainly in young people after receiving mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines.
The number of cases is small, but higher than expected.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on June 10 that they will hold an emergency meeting on June 18 to discuss a possible link between the disease and vaccines.
Other health organizations, such as the European Medicines Agency, are also investigating.
But Eriksen's collapse has nothing to do with the vaccine.
Luboš Motl had to delete his tweet after Inter Milan manager Giuseppe Marotta told Italian TV channel Rai Sport that Eriksen had not received any COVID-19 vaccines.
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Radio Sportiva, for its part, denied that someone from the team's medical staff had said that the player had been vaccinated.
"The information reported in the aforementioned tweet is false," the radio station wrote on Twitter on June 13.
We have never reported any opinion from Inter's medical staff on Christian Eriksen's condition, ”they said.
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Inter Milan doctor Piero Volpi told the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport that Eriksen will undergo comprehensive examinations over the next few days.
"But there has never been an episode that even remotely hinted at a problem," Volpi added.
Sanjay Sharma, Eriksen's cardiologist while playing for Tottenham Hotspur, said some players may have had mild or asymptomatic coronavirus infections, which can result in heart "scarring," but that Eriksen never had heart problems while in the Premier. League.
Eriksen signed with Inter Milan in January 2020.
Our verdict
Various social media posts claim that Eriksen collapsed during the match from cardiac arrest days after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer.
The director of Inter Milan, the Italian team Eriksen plays for, said the footballer had not received any vaccinations against the virus.
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The footballer is currently undergoing tests to determine the cause of the problem.
Therefore, we
qualify this statement as false
.
