Lazio President Claudio Lotito courted controversy by suggesting Roma have no right to complain about scheduling when Evan Ndicka’s health scare was ‘not that bad.’
Roma’s game against Udinese last weekend at the Bluenergy Stadium was suspended at the 72nd minute when Ndicka went to ground clutching his chest, complaining of pains and breathing difficulties.
He was stretchered off, then rushed to hospital after an EKG performed by medics showed some ‘worrying’ irregularities in his cardiac rhythms.
Following a night in hospital for observation and more tests, Ndicka was released the next day with doctors revealing he had suffered from a partially collapsed lung.
Ndicka health scare
As per Serie A rules, the remaining 18 minutes plus stoppages must be played and that has been scheduled for April 25 at 19.00 UK time (18.00 GMT), which gives Roma little time to prepare for games against Napoli and above all the Europa League semi-final with Bayer Leverkusen.
Roma released a statement protesting the ‘unfair’ decision that penalises them when trying to keep the Italian flag flying in Europe.
While most showed empathy for the situation and how shaken the players were to see their teammate stretchered off with a suspected heart problem, Lazio President Lotito has a different take.
“Let’s be perfectly honest, they stopped a match for a Code Yellow incident,” La Stampa quoted Lotito saying during a political event.
“It was clear it wasn’t that bad, they could’ve just waited and restarted the match later that night.”
The squad went to visit Ndicka in hospital before returning to Rome.
Italian medical emergencies are defined in codes, so Code Red is an emergency when there is imminent threat to life, whereas Code Yellow is still an urgent situation that requires rapid access to care.
He is not wrong, it was a code yellow. Code red was sadly earlier that day not in this match.
And Lotito is code shame-on-you! Pathetic guy really suits well with pathetic club
A charmless man in charge of a boorish club, a perfect match.