BRUSSELS (AP) - Francois “Swat” Van der Elst, who won club titles in Belgium and the United States and made it to the 1980 European Championship final with the Belgian national soccer team, has died. He was 62.
Van der Elst suffered a heart attack on New Year’s Day and was kept in an artificial coma before he died on Wednesday, his fomer club Anderlecht said.
With Anderlecht in the 1970s, the striker won two national titles, two European Cup Winners’ Cups and two European Super Cups during a six-year spell. He went on to win a league title with the New York Cosmos in 1980 before moving to English club West Ham.
After his career, he ran a snooker club in Belgium.
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