Arsenal and Everton legend, Kevin Campbell died from natural causes after becoming seriously ill with severe heart and kidney failure, a coroner has concluded.
Mr Campbell died aged 54 at Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) on June 15 last year following drastic weight loss.
Campbell, who still holds the record as the player who scored the most Premier League goals without winning a full international cap for his country, shed over 10 stone in the four months prior to his death on June 15 last year.
Mr Campbell was said to be fit and healthy until January 2024, when he was first admitted to hospital.
Manchester Coroner’s Court heard he was ‘desperately unwell’ when he arrived at MRI for what ended up being a seven week stay, during which time his weight crashed from 19st 7lbs to 15st 6lbs.
Upon arrival, he was taken to intensive care where doctors discovered that he had suffered a stroke, caused by a blood clot on his heart, which was causing kidney failure and liver damage.
Medics investigated whether some kind of viral infection might have caused this, perhaps picked up on the ex-player’s recent holiday in Papua New Guinea, though that proved not to be the case.
An inquest in Manchester heard tests showed he was suffering from severe heart and kidney failure but following treatment, including dialysis, he was deemed healthy enough to be discharged.
MRI consultant pathologist Dr Robert Henney told the inquest: ‘When Mr Campbell came in, he was already desperately unwell.’
He added: ‘Many people would not have survived to point he did. His physical fitness allowed him to get that ill before being admitted.
After kidney dialysis treatment Mr Campbell’s condition improved, and he was discharged in early March.
‘He told the physios that he was managing ok and looking after himself in the ward,’ Dr Henney said.
By the time Campbell was readmitted two months later on May 17, his weight was down to 9st 4lbs – meaning he had lost more than half his body weight in only four months.
The hospital’s consultant physician Professor Peter Shelby told the inquest: ‘Why was it that a man who a few months before was a picture of health had so suddenly deteriorated? There should have been a little more curiosity.’
His health continued to deteriorate as further investigations and tests in early June confirmed a diagnosis of infective endocarditis. Medical treatment then continued until his death from multiple organ failure.
Coroner Zak Golombek found a delay in the diagnosis of a rare heart infection ‘did not more than minimally contribute’ to the sporting star’s tragic early demise.
Mr Golombek said the ex-footballer was ‘very unwell’ at that stage and medics felt there was some continuation of the heart and kidney failure, with signs of an infection of unknown cause.
An internal probe by the hospital accepted the infection – caused by bacteria entering the blood and travelling to the heart – could have been diagnosed earlier and that ‘more curiosity’ should have been shown by clinicians over his significant weight loss.
But the inquest was also told that Mr. Campbell would ‘almost certainly’ not been been fit enough to undertake ‘high risk’ open-heart surgery if the infection had been detected earlier during his final admission.
Prof Selby said: ‘We are not talking about simple surgery. People would have concluded that surgery was nothing other than taking a fatal option.’
The inquest heard there was no evidence the infection – said to be ‘difficult’ to identify – was present during his first hospital admission or at a follow-up outpatient appointment with a cardiologist on April 26.
Recording a conclusion of death by natural causes, Mr Golombek said: ‘While it is my finding that there was delay in diagnosing infected endocarditis during that second admission to hospital, it also my finding that the delay did not more than minimally contribute to Kevin’s death on the balance of probabilities.
‘Kevin died from a naturally occurring illness which very sadly on June 15 reached its natural end.’
Giving evidence, MRI consultant Dr Robert Henney said: ‘Unfortunately, he had two completely separate and unrelated insults to his heart in a short space of time, so he was desperately unlucky.’
Harold Campbell told the hearing that his brother was the family ‘superstar’.
He said: ‘Kevin was very loved as a football professional, in the media and especially by the fans of the clubs he played for. He was very, very loved by everyone.
‘From a family point of view, he was our superstar from his start in football at 13 years old.
‘Everyone loved him, not only as a professional footballer but as a normal person. His football career was successful but after his retirement, I think everyone sort of got more in tune with his personality – a normal person and he was very, very loved.’
Mr Campbell scored 59 goals in 224 games for Arsenal and, alongside the 1990/91 league title, he also won the FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup at Highbury.
He spent three years at Nottingham Forest after joining them in 1995 and had a one-season stop at Trabzonspor in Turkey before moving to Everton in 1999.
He stayed at Everton until 2005, where he spent time as captain under Walter Smith, and ended his career with spells at West Brom and Cardiff.