France star Jean-Pierre Adams dies at 73

Erstwhile France centre-back Jean-Pierre Adams is reportedly dead at the age of 73 after battling the last 39 years in a coma.

The former French International was pronounced dead this morning at Nimes University Hospital.

Jean-Pierre made 22 appearances for the French national team between 1972 and 1976.

Adams slipped into the coma when he was 34 following an anaesthesia error while he was in the hospital for routine knee surgery.

Pierre played most of his club football for Nice, where he made 126 appearances scoring 15 goals. He also featured for Nimes, PSG, Mulhouse and Chalon.

Adams and his wife Bernadette had two sons together, Laurent and Frederic.

Bernadette spoke CNN about the time her husband went in for knee surgery, she said:

"The female anaesthetist was looking after eight patients, one after the other, like an assembly line.

"Jean-Pierre was supervised by a trainee, who was repeating a year, who later admitted in court, 'I was not up to the task I was entrusted with.’

'"Given it was not a vital operation, that the hospital was on strike, they were missing doctors and this woman was looking after eight patients, in two different rooms, someone should have called me to say they were going to delay the operation.

"I found him lying on a bed, tubes everywhere.

"I didn't leave the hospital for five days. I thought he was going to wake up and that I needed to be there."

Adams had just made the move into coaching with Dijon when he decided to get his knee looked at Lyon Hospital.

After a seven-year battle in the courts, the doctors at the hospital were found guilty of involuntary injury.