By Dipo Olowookere
Business Post has confirmed that Cameroonian football legend, Rigobert Song has not passed away as being reported in some sections of the media.
Mr Song is said to be responding to treatment at a hospital in Paris, France, where he was taken to from the Yaounde Central Hospital in Cameroon this week.
On Saturday, a former sports journalist with the BBC and CNN, Mr Gary Al-Smith, cleared the air concerning the death hoax in a tweet.
“Confirmed from multiple sources; Rigobert Song NOT dead. He actually waved his hands this morning and was able to speak,” Mr Al-Smith posted on Twitter.
“CAF boss Issa Hayatou will be seeing Rigobert Song at La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital in Paris. Song had a cerebral aneurysm, not a stroke,” he said further.
On Sunday, the former Liverpool and West Ham defender slipped into a coma and was rushed to the hospital before being flown abroad for further treatment.
On Tuesday, the Yaounde Emergency Centre Director, Dr Louis Joss Bitang A Mafok, confirmed that the oxygen put on Mr Song had been disconnected and that his high blood pressure had returned to normal, adding that the cerebral haemorrhage had been stabilised and that the former football star was out of his coma.
But on Friday, African News Today posted on its platform that Mr Song had died at 40 in France after suffering a stroke.
The report quoted the football legend’s nephew, Mr Alex Song, as confirming the alleged death.
“Our beloved passed on this morning. At this moment the family is bereaved,” the website claimed Mr Alex Song, a former Arsenal and Barcelona midfielder, posted online.
However, when Business Post checked Mr Song’s Wikipedia page, no record of his death has been posted. His profile, as at 4:37pm on Saturday, October 8, 2016, shows he is still alive and not dead.