Appearing before the American Congress on Tuesday, September 24, Brett Favre, a former major NFL player, now aged 54, revealed that he suffers from Parkinson’s. “I’m sure you will understand that it is too late for me, because I was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease,” the former quarterback revealed when asked about concussion treatment.
Three MVP titles
Although his name is relatively unknown in France, Brett Favre is a star in the United States thanks to his extraordinary career in American football. Drafted in 1991 by the Atlanta Falcons, he found glory with the Green Bay Packers by winning the Super Bowl in 1997, the third for the franchise and the first since 1968. He also won three MVP titles and set a crazy record of 297 consecutive games as a starter between 1992 and his retirement in 2010.
A strong presence on the field that has a cost: the player is very regularly the victim of concussions. “I’ve had hundreds, maybe thousands of them in my career, which is scary.”declared in 2018 the man who was competitive until he was 40. Since ending his career, Favre has made prevention his hobby horse while chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the cause of neurodegenerative diseases, affects the vast majority of NFL players.
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The announcement of his Parkinson’s disease moved part of the American public opinion but also left many people cold because of Favre’s tarnished image in Uncle Sam’s country. If the former sportsman was before the American Congress it was because of a scandal of embezzlement of public funds where he is accused of having benefited from part of 77 million euros intended for the poorest families in Mississippi. This money is said to have been used to build a volleyball hall and to develop a nasal spray for… concussions.
