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A teenage Spurs striker who suffered a devastating heart attack during his first professional game, is suing the club for £7m in damages.

Radwan Hamed was 17 when he suffered a Fabrice Muamba-style cardiac arrest during a match for Tottenham Hotspur's youth team against Belgian side, Cercle Bruges, on 4 August 2006.

Bystanders tried to resuscitate him on the pitch, but it took 16 minutes for an ambulance to get to the scene with a defibrillator, his barrister, William Featherby QC, told the High Court.

Radwan - known as Rad - who had only signed as a professional for Spurs nine days earlier, was rushed to a hospital intensive care unit but, unlike Muamba, tragically suffered oxygen starvation and catastrophic brain damage.

Now the 25-year-old is suing the Premiership club, along with consultant cardiologist, Dr Peter Mills, who screened him for heart defects before the club signed him.

His lawyers value his claim at between £5 and £7 million, but both the club and Dr Mills deny all blame for his injuries. Opening the case, Mr Featherby said: "The risk of sudden cardiac death in young footballers - indeed with all young athletes - has been recognised for decades.

(Image: Getty)

"The list of British sporting deaths over the last two decades is tragically long."

The barrister said the casualties included: John Marshall, a 16-year-old Everton player who died in 1995; Marc Foe, who played for West Ham and Manchester City and died aged 28 in 2003; Daniel Yorath, who was just 15 and playing for Leeds United when he died in 1992; David Longhurst, a York player who died in 1990, aged 25, and Ian Bell, who played for Hartlepool and died in 2001.

Mr Featherby also pointed to the case of Fabrice Muamba who suffered a cardiac arrest during a televised match between Bolton and Spurs in 2012.

Although his heart stopped for 78 minutes, he survived and later retired from the professional game.

The QC told the court: "Sudden cardiac death amongst fit, young, people has been called the silent killer.

"Tottenham Hotspur are a very wealthy club - currently 6th in the league.

"They have massive, one might say eye-watering, resources with which to look after the health and safety of young players who are, after all, its employees". He told Mr Justice Hickinbottom: "This case concerns the cardiac collapse and subsequent brain damage of Radwan Hamed.

"His case is that he was catastrophically failed - let down - by a consultant cardiologist, Dr Peter Mills, and his employers, Spurs.

(Image: Radwan Hamed / Twitter)

"Both of them deny liability. They are seeking to palm off responsibility for Rad's disastrous injury on each other.

"It is, with respect, an unattractive spectacle", said Mr Featherby.

"Rad's case is that, between them, these two could and should have acted in such a way that this grave injury would never have happened."

Prior to his collapse, Rad showed no symptoms of the cardiac disease which felled him, the court heard.

He signed for Spurs on July 26 2006 and, in line with Football Association protocols, he was screened by Dr Mills in July 2005. The consultant recognised that his ECG trace was 'abnormal', said the QC. Super-fit young athletes sometimes have variations in their heart traces - a condition known as 'athlete's heart'.

But Mr Featherby said Rad was in fact suffering from life threatening condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

(Image: Getty)

He added: "To put it at its lowest, Dr Mills failed to state just how abnormal Rad's heart appeared and that the more likely diagnosis was sinisterly pathalogical.

"Cardiac disease was, at that stage, a more likely diagnosis than benign physiological changes". Dr Mills had suggested regular reviews of Rad's condition, but none was carried out by the club, the QC claimed.

"Moreover, and equally importantly, no one explained to Rad or his parents what was happening, or its implications or significance".

Hamed's father, Raymond, was told by a club medic, 'there is nothing to worry about", claimed the barrister. But he added: "In fact, there was, as events were to prove catastrophically a year later.

"Not only was the failure to arrange a clinical review a serious error, there was a failure to consider, let alone implement, a range of other investigations."

The QC claimed Dr Mills should have had a 'well-founded suspicion' that Rad was suffering from a 'life-threatening heart condition'. Club medics, he added, had failed to review or follow up Rad's case despite the reported abnormality in his heart.

(Image: Getty)

HCM is a disease of the muscle of the heart in which a portion is thickened without any obvious cause.

It is a leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes. All budding professional footballers undergo a screening process intended to discover if they have any dangerous heart defects at the outset of their careers under FA regulations.

Mr Featherby claims that, had Rad's condition been diagnosed as it should have been, he would have been stopped from playing professional football.

"There should have been a high index of suspicion relating to HCM and its potentially fatal or catastrophic consequences. "It was not appropriate to declare that it was reasonable for Rad to continue to train as a professional footballer", the QC argues.

Dr Peter Mills, says it was the fault of club medics that 17-year-old Radwan's dangerous condition was not spotted.

The medic's barrister, David Westcott QC, told the court: "Two doctors and other members of the (club's) medical department were evidently involved in the matter.

"It may be that the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing".

His barrister told the court he had reported a 'worrying abnormality' in the young player's heart to the club. But he added: "Remarkably, the club's doctors did not discuss the detail of the cardiologist's concerns either with Radwan, his parents, or the cardiologist himself".

Dr Mills, added Mr Westcott, was doing the club's bidding and Rad was 'not his patient' at the time of the screening.

He had recommended that the teenager's condition be kept under review, but that simply had not happened. Although he had told Spurs that it would be 'reasonable' for Rad to continue in training, he did not say that it would be 'safe' or that there was 'no risk'.

Mr Westcott said it could well have been a breakdown in communications at Spurs which led to Rad taking to the field without a clinical review.

Dr Mills, the court heard, 'readily accepts' that Rad 'should have been given the opportunity' to decide for himself whether he wanted to continue with his professional career.

However, Mr Westcott insisted that it was the club's fault that he and his parents were never given the full facts before his collapse.

'Organisational deficiencies' within the club's medical department may have been to blame or the potential significance of the reported abnormality may not have been realised.

The barrister said: "It is hard to comtemplate that careful doctors who were alerted to a worrying abnormality in cardiac screening, the potential significance of which they understood, would not only keep the details from their patient, but would do so without once picking up the telephone to speak to the cardiologist so as to discuss how best to deal with the situation.

"Either course of action would inevitably have led to clinical review in the summer of 2005". Insisting that Dr Mills owed his duties to the club, not Rad himself, Mr Westcott added: "He was guilty of no lack of care in the initial screening or in the follow-up reporting..."

The barrister also claimed that, even had Rad been told of his condition and given the opportunity to choose, he would have decided to continue to train with Spurs.

Rad's legal team has accused Dr Mills and Spurs of 'catastrophically failing' him - but both fiercely deny liability for his lifelong disabilities. The hearing continues.