Football
Associated Press 7y

Ajax's Abdelhak Nouri suffers 'severe and permanent brain damage'

Ajax midfielder Abdelhak Nouri has suffered "severe and permanent brain damage" after collapsing during a preseason friendly game in Austria on Saturday.

The Dutch club "it received very bad news regarding the condition of Abdelhak Nouri" after doctors at a hospital in Innsbruck woke him from an induced coma.

In a post on their official Twitter account, the club said: "#Ajax are deeply saddened by the news that Appie Nouri has been diagnosed with serious and permanent brain damage..."

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to him and his loved ones in this difficult time."

Nouri's brother Abderrahim told AD: "The doctors are quite confident that he will not recover. If he were to wake up, he would not be able to think, eat, talk, walk or even recognise people. He would not be able to function normally.

"But we are not giving up. God will decide his fate. Our religion [Islam] teaches us to accept things and we are praying for his recovery.

"We think this life is only temporary and the eternal comes after this one, but everybody would have liked to see him score goals first."

The diagnosis comes two days after tests indicated that Nouri's heart was undamaged while a CT scan of his brain and neurological tests showed no irregularities either.

Ajax said on Tuesday that doctors were "cautiously optimistic about his recovery."

The 20-year-old Dutchman collapsed and was taken to hospital by helicopter with Ajax trailing Werder Bremen 2-1 in Saturday's preseason friendly.

The game in Zillertal in the Austrian Alps was abandoned after the 70th-minute incident.

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