Former France and Nimes defender, Jean-Pierre Adams has passed on after almost four decades in coma.
Adams died aged 73, Nimes announced on Monday.
Adams made 22 international appearances for France in the 1970s.
He slipped into a coma after a mistake by his anaesthetist during routine knee surgery in 1982.
Adams was born in 1948 in Dakar, Senegal and was one of the first men born in West Africa to play for France.
His centre-back partnership with Marius Tresor for France was nicknamed “the black guard”.
“We learned this morning of the death of Jean-Pierre Adams,” Nimes wrote on Twitter, extending their “sincere condolences to his family”.
The rock solid defender also played for Nice and Paris Saint-Germain in his active days.
