Cercle Brugge goalkeeper Van Damme dies at 28 after battle with cancer

Cercle Brugge goalkeeper Miguel Van Damme has died aged 28 after suffering from leukaemia, the Belgian club said on Tuesday.

He spent his eight-year professional career at Cercle Brugge but his battle with cancer limited him to less than 50 appearances for the club.

Van Damme was diagnosed with leukaemia during a routine medical check-up in 2016. He recovered from his first bout of the disease to play five more games over the course of the next four years, before suffering a relapse in January 2020.

He said in September 2020 that treatment would no longer have any effect.

"Words are not enough to describe what we feel, even though we knew that things had not been going well for some time," Brugge said in a statement. "Today is an extremely difficult day in the almost 123-year history of Cercle Brugge.

"Our thoughts go, first of all to his wife Kyana, his daughter Camille, the parents of Miguel, his sister Francesca, and also to his many friends and family."

(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)