Hertha Berlin winger Jean-Paul Boetius will have surgery after being diagnosed with testicular cancer, becoming the fourth Bundesliga player to receive such a diagnosis this year.
Boetius (28), who moved to the German city from Bundesliga club Mainz in the summer, discovered the news on Wednesday following a urological test.
Boetius is being treated for the condition alongside teammate Marco Richter, Union Berlin’s Timo Baumgartl, and Borussia Dortmund’s Sebastien Haller.
Richter and Baumgartl have both made successful returns to the field, while Haller, who was diagnosed with cancer in July, is currently undergoing treatment.
“As a Hertha family, we will stand united,” stated Hertha football director Fredi Bobic in a statement posted on Thursday.
We are hopeful and confident that Jean-Paul will recover and rejoin our circle as soon as possible, despite the bitterness of this news.
Klaus-Peter Dieckmann, director of the Testicular Tumour Centre at Hamburg’s Asklepios Clinic, stated that there is no correlation between sports and cancer, telling Germany’s SID news agency that only males of professional athletic age are prone to the condition.
“When guys between the ages of 20 and 40 are diagnosed with cancer, it is virtually exclusively testicular cancer,” he explained.
It is therefore not surprising that Bundesliga players are affected.
According to league regulations, Bundesliga players are not routinely examined for testicular cancer, although some clubs, such as Union Berlin, have begun screening players for the disease.
AFP