Ghana winger Christian Atsu has been found dead under the building where he lived in southern Turkey after last week’s massive earthquake, his Turkish agent said on Saturday, February 18, 2023.
Atsu, who was 31, had been missing since the Feb. 6 earthquake following the collapse of an apartment building in Hatay.
“Atsu’s lifeless body was found under the rubble,” Murat Uzunmehmet told journalists in Hatay. “Currently, more items are still being taken out. His phone was also found.”
Antakya, the city where Hatayspor is based, is in the southern region of Turkey hardest hit by the earthquake.
Atsu had been scheduled to fly out of southern Turkey hours before the quake, but Hatayspor’s manager said on Friday the Ghanaian opted to stay with the club after scoring the winning goal in a February 5 Super Lig match.
Atsu joined Hatayspor in September last year after spells with English Premier League clubs Everton, Chelsea, and Newcastle United.
We are deeply saddened by the news Christian Atsu lost his life in the devastation of the earthquakes that have hit Turkey and Syria.
Our thoughts and condolences are with Christian's family and friends and everyone affected by this tragic event. pic.twitter.com/GLqXdd80Xl— Premier League (@premierleague) February 18, 2023
“We will not forget you, Atsu. Peace be upon you, beautiful person. There are no words to describe our sadness,” Hatayspor wrote on Twitter.
The funeral of our football player Christian Atsu, who lost his life under the rubble ( debris), is on his way to be sent to his hometown, Ghana. We will not forget you, Atsu. Peace be upon you, beautiful person. There are no words to describe our sadness.
REST in PEACE ATSU— Hatayspor (@Hatayspor_FK) February 18, 2023
Newcastle also paid tribute on their official website: “A talented player and a special person, he will always be fondly remembered by our players, staff, and supporters.”
Atsu won 65 caps for Ghana and helped them reach the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final, where they lost to Ivory Coast on penalties. He was last selected to play for Ghana in 2019.
He joined Chelsea from Porto in 2013 and had several loan spells at clubs including Vitesse and Bournemouth.
“Chelsea sends our heartfelt condolences to Christian’s family and friends and to all those affected by the earthquake tragedy,” the London club said on Saturday.
A day after the earthquake, reports circulated that Atsu had been rescued following information that Hatayspor had received, however they later said the reports were heartbreakingly mistaken and the player was still missing.
It had also said the club’s sporting director, Taner Savut, was still missing. Savut has not been found.
The contractor of the 12-story Ronesans Rezidans building — where Atsu and Savut lived — was detained at Istanbul Airport a week ago, apparently trying to leave the country.
More than 45,000 people have been killed in the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, and the toll is expected to rise with some 264,000 apartments in Turkey destroyed and many still missing in the country’s worst modern disaster.
Global Football Icon, Pelé, Dies At 82
He was hailed as the king of soccer, but it was Pelé’s other nickname — the Pérola Negra, or Black Pearl — that best evoked the rare brilliance he packed into his diminutive frame. Pelé, who for decades staked a claim as the world’s most celebrated athlete, died, Thursday, December 29, 2022, at 82.
His manager Joe Fraga confirmed the death to the Associated Press. Additional details were not immediately available, but Pelé had been hospitalized in São Paulo, Brazil, for the past month, undergoing treatments for colon cancer.
Pelé’s eminence in soccer spanned three decades in which he helped Brazil win World Cup titles in 1958, 1962, and 1970. Quick, agile, adept with both feet, and laserlike with his headers, Pelé was built for scoring and blessed with a jazz master’s improvisational skills on the soccer pitch.
During his 22-year professional career, Pelé appeared in more than 1,300 matches and scored almost as many goals, yet he was hardly a one-man show. He saw the field the way a chess champion sees the board — two, three, four moves ahead — with the tactical savvy to pass to teammates better positioned to strike.
He was barely 20 when the president of Brazil proclaimed him an official national treasure. It was an honorific and an economic restraint; it barred him from being transferred to a wealthy European club willing to pay hugely for his services. Pelé was an asset too essential to the national interest to export.
Nonetheless, born and reared in poverty, the soccer champion formally known as Edson Arantes do Nascimento was among the world’s first athletes to recognize the power and riches of the personal brand.
Later in his career, after retiring from Brazilian club Santos, which was the country’s dominant team in the 1960s, Pelé took his global aura to America, signing with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League in 1975, when he was in his mid-30s. The deal was reportedly brokered by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, one of Pelé’s ardent admirers and a believer in the international goodwill spawned by “the beautiful game.”
The genius of Pelé’s play prompted a 48-hour cease-fire in at least one civil war as Nigerians put their arms down to behold his mastery during a 1969 exhibition in Lagos.
It wasn’t just Pelé’s skill that transcended boundaries; so, too, did his fame. He never knew the origin of his nickname. “Pelé” has no meaning in Portuguese, but it was simple enough for a child to pronounce and make itself understood in all languages, as did Pelé’s signature smile.
As he remarked in a 2001 interview, “Wherever you go, there are three icons that everyone knows: Jesus Christ, Pelé, and Coca-Cola.”
A year earlier, the international governing body of soccer, FIFA, named Pelé and Argentina’s Diego Maradona co-players of the 20th century. The question of who was the game’s greatest of all time — Pelé, with his three World Cup titles, or Maradona, with his one championship in four World Cup appearances — roiled passions well beyond South America. It was a debate that offended Pelé.
