Ex-Premier League star suing doctor for £7m after ‘unnecessary’ operation

A former Premier League footballer is suing his surgeon after alleging that his top flight career came to a premature end due to an “unnecessary” and “destructive” operation on his ankle

Former Premier League striker Sylan Ebanks-Blake is suing a surgeon for more than £7million after claiming his top flight career was ended by an “unnecessary” operation. Ebanks-Blake broke his leg while playing for Wolves in the Championship back in 2013.

And the 39-year-old, who started his career at Manchester United’s academy, alleges that his surgeon Prof James Calder performed an “unnecessary” and “destructive” operation on his ankle.

Ebanks-Blake believes this caused an early end to his top level career, having been released by Wolves in 2014 and managing just nine appearances in his sole season in the Championship with Ipswich.

The player’s barrister Simeon Maskrey KC told Mrs Justice Lambert at London’s High Court: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Ebanks-Blake also claims that he was not asked for proper consent before the operation on his ankle.

However, Prof Calder’s lawyers claim that Ebanks-Blake “had an overoptimistic view of his own powers of recovery.” The surgeon’s barrister Martin Forde KC added: “Far from curtailing the claimant’s career, the defendant will argue that his clinical skills prolonged the career of a professional footballer, who had suffered a very serious injury.”

After leaving Ipswich in 2014, Ebanks-Blake spent the next four years in League One before dropping down to the National League. He ultimately retired in 2019 after playing for non-league side Walsall Wood.

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Before suffering the initial injury, Ebanks-Blake had enjoyed three seasons in the Premier League with Wolves after helping them win the Championship in 2009. He scored 25 league goals that season and was the top scorer in the Championship.

In written submissions, Forde said: “It is arguable that if Professor Calder had done anything other than what he did do, he would have been negligent for not dealing with the loose fragments and unstable cartilage.”

He continued: “The defendant’s position is that through his judgment and skill he prolonged the claimant’s career. The claimant’s case quite clearly is that his career was curtailed.”

Ebanks-Blake’s lawyers say that the operation caused “stiffness and reduction of movement” in his left ankle and claim that his decision to retire was “the result of the continuing pain and stiffness in the left ankle joint” and not due to another leg fracture he suffered in January 2019.

“He was left unable to play football at all without recourse to steroid injections,” Maskrey added. “When he did play, the loss of movement and pain hampered his ability to play to his previous standard.

“The combination of an inability to play regularly and/or for a reasonable length of time and his reduced standard of play gave rise to transfers from the Premier League to the lower divisions of the English Football League and eventually to non-league clubs.

“Following the fracture of the left fibula on the 26th January 2019, the claimant reasonably gave up playing football. He did so not because of the consequences of the fracture, but because of the pain and stiffness in the left ankle joint.

“It is probable that without any intervention on the part of the defendant the left ankle joint would eventually have become symptomatic.

“However, the symptomology would have been delayed, would probably have been of slow onset and would not have prevented the claimant from continuing to play in the Premier Division and/or the Championship until his mid-30s.

“As it is, the claimant can no longer play football. He continues to suffer pain and stiffness in the left ankle. He has developed consequential psychiatric symptoms of depression.”

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