Article by Aurelian Botezatu – published Tuesday, September 16, 2025, 07:25 / Updated Tuesday, September 16, 2025 07:25
Former defender of Barcelona and representative of France, Eric Abidal (46 years old), was forced to give a statement confirming that he is “alive and unharmed” after social networks circulated a rumor about his death.
According to the French publication Le Parisien, several accounts on the X platform began to spread the statement that the 46 -year -old player would have died due to the complications of a second liver transplant. A false rumor, to which Eric Abidal had no choice and had to react through a statement.
“Some rumors should never exist,” he wrote on Instagram. “I am here with my family and everything is fine. Respect is essential. There is a family and my children behind this. To be clear, I'm fine, I'm alive and unharmed. Thank you for your support and concern messages. Let us focus on what really matters. “
Eric Abidal was diagnosed with a liver tumor in 2011
The false story launched in the online space based on Abidal's well -documented and inspirational struggle with liver cancer. The former French international was diagnosed with a liver tumor in 2011, while at the top of his career in Barcelona.
After an initial surgery, he needed a transplant a year later, before returning remarkably and emotionally on the field in April 2013. He continued his player career at Monaco and Olympiakos before he permanently withdraws in 2014.
Eric Abidal: “Leo Messi told me I looked like a corpse”
In 2018, Eric Abidal spoke about the hardest moments of his life. “The pain of those moments I will never forget. It was indescribable, like a knife that stifles you live. I was very happy when the doctors announced that it needed operation. I do not want anyone to go through it.
One day, when I was weak, I made a video to which I wanted to encourage my colleagues. Do you know what Messi told me? Not to send them such pictures, because they do them harm. He told me they could see me like a corpse and that did them a lot.
It hurt as much as me. I saw things differently. I wanted to be close to them, to help them. When Thierry Henry visited me at the hospital, I cried like a child. I didn't want to see me in that state, “Abidal told the channel+.
