A frightening medical emergency for Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen led to the suspension of the Denmark-Finland match at Euro 2020 Saturday. Eriksen collapsed on the pitch in the 42nd minute without contact, and players quickly rushed around him and called for medical staffers. Those staffers came running on and started treating Eriksen, giving him CPR. But the broadcast kept showing close-up shots of what was going on, taking some criticism in the process from viewers who found that disturbing and said they should have thrown to studio.
It should be noted that those camera decisions are made by the UEFA-controlled world feed, not individual broadcasters showing this. But it’s interesting that this led to criticism for everyone from ESPN to Univision to the BBC. At any rate, players formed a screen around Eriksen, blocking off some of the close-ups, and Eriksen was eventually stretchered off (he did appear to be conscious at that point, with a Reuters photographer seeing him raise his hand), and the match was suspended by UEFA. Here’s some of how that played out on ESPN:
UEFA later put out this statement:
Following the medical emergency involving Denmark’s player Christian Eriksen, a crisis meeting has taken place with both teams and match officials and further information will be communicated at 19:45 CET.
The player has been transferred to the hospital and has been stabilised.
— UEFA (@UEFA) June 12, 2021
And the Danish federation put out this statement:
Official statement from Denmark. 🙏🏻🇩🇰
“Christian Eriksen is AWAKE and is undergoing further examinations at Rigshospitalet”. #prayforEriksen
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 12, 2021
UEFA also said that they’ll resume the match at 8:30 p.m. local (2:30 p.m. Eastern), citing a “request made by players of both teams”:
Following the request made by players of both teams, UEFA has agreed to restart the match between Denmark and Finland tonight at 20:30 CET (TBC).
The last four minutes of the first half will be played, there will then be a 5-minute half-time break followed by the second half.
— UEFA (@UEFA) June 12, 2021
Our thoughts go out to Eriksen, his family, and his teammates.
[Reuters; photo from Clippit]
