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Former NHS Chief Believes Teenage Son's Cancer Was Caused By 3G Pitch

Former NHS Chief Believes Teenage Son's Cancer Was Caused By 3G Pitch

He believes Lewis contracted cancer from the artificial pitch and he wants the government to ban them...

Anonymous

Anonymous

The father of an aspiring goalkeeper who died of cancer has pleaded to the UK government to ban the construction of artificial sports pitches.

Nigel Maguire, a former NHS chief, believes that his son's death was caused by regularly playing on the surfaces.

Image: Twitter
Image: Twitter

His son, 20-year-old Lewis Maguire, died of cancer only a month after he beat it for the third time.

Maguire Jr. was on trial at Leeds United in 2013 when he became ill, having played on 3G pitches which had scatterings of rubber pellets made from used car tyres for five years.

These pellets contain harmful chemicals such as lead, mercury and benzene, and Maguire sr feared that his son's cancer started as he took in these toxic chemicals when he dived for the ball; either by swallowing them or having lodged inside his grazes.

Maguire Sr. has since urged the government to cease further construction of 3G crumb rubber pitches and also called on the Football Association and Rugby Football Union to take immediate action as well.

"I'm not hysterical; I'm not somebody who says, 'My son's died and isn't this terrible?'; I'm asking reasonable questions that nobody has the answers to," Maguire told the Daily Telegraph.

Image: CASCADE NEWS
Image: CASCADE NEWS

"And in the absence of those answers, we need to have more research and take more precautions."

Sports minister Tracey Crouch came out to explain that there had been studies into the safety of artificial pitches, but the results found no evidence to suggest that they were a health hazard.

However, Maguire sr, who quit his high-level job in the health industry to look after his son when became ill, stresses that none of the research carried out explored the risk of ingestion of the pellets or the health risks of them coming to contact with open cuts.

"Despite the fact that people say, 'Everything's safe and all the evidence says it's safe,' it's categorically untrue.

"An absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence."

Words: Jacque Talbot

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Football News, Football