Team-mates from past and present gathered for Cheick Tiote’s memorial service on Tuesday following the former Newcastle United player’s shock death earlier in June.
Tiote died while training with Chinese club Beijing Enterprises, and well wishers were given an opportunity to pay their respects to the midfielder during the Beijing service.
The Ivorian’s former Toon team-mate Papiss Cisse was in attendance and couldn’t fight back the tears as he paid tribute to Tiote.
‘I lived some extraordinary moments with this man and today he’s gone,’ Cisse said at the memorial.
The 30-year-old’s body will be flown back to Ivory Coast on Wednesday before a private funeral service is held.
Members of his family, as well as his agent Emanuele Palladino, flew out to China following the shock announcement of his death after he had collapsed while training.
They await the results of a post-mortem, but a suspected heart attack appears the likely cause at this stage.
The news sent shock-waves around the football world and prompted a tide of tributes, most notably from former managers Steve McClaren and Alan Pardew.
With Tiote’s passing coming just little under two months after former Aston Villa defender Ugo Ehiogu died of a cardiac arrest, Andy Cole has questioned whether more could be done to protect players from heart problems.
‘If someone is only 30 and they pass away, the question that is naturally going to be asked is ‘Why? What’s gone on there? Why has he passed away so early?”, Cole told BBC Radio Five Live.
‘It’s a strange one. Cheick Tiote hadn’t been in China that long – a few months – so he must have had a medical to complete the transfer. Was nothing picked up in that medical?
‘Is anything actually being done? Is it being looked into? We need to nail it down and get to the bottom of why and what it is, because it seems to be happening to more and more professional footballers – fit, strong men.’
