George Baldock, the Greece international soccer player who was found dead at his home in Athens on Wednesday, drowned while swimming in his pool, his family said.
Greek police said this week there was no initial indication the death of the 31-year-old former Premier League player was suspicious.
“We are heartbroken with the sudden passing of our beloved George. We can confirm that a post-mortem examination has found that George tragically drowned whilst swimming in the pool at his home in Glyfada, Athens,” Baldock's family said in a statement issued to The Associated Press.
The family said the Panathinaikos defender, who was born in Britain, had been due to return to the U.K. on Thursday to celebrate his baby son's first birthday.
“George, you were the most special father, fiance, son, brother, uncle, friend, teammate and person. Your enthusiasm and infectious personality brought so much love to those that were fortunate enough to know you and those that adored you from the stands,” the family said. “We will forever cherish the special memories we have of you and you will continue to live on in your beautiful son."
Baldock was of Greek heritage and played 12 matches for the national team.
He joined Sheffield United in 2017 and helped the club earn promotion to the Premier League twice, in 2019 and 2023. He joined Panathinaikos in May, on a three-year contract, after Sheffield United was relegated to England’s second division.
“As a family it has been incredibly touching, but equally so very difficult to read the huge number of tributes written by those that knew George and from those whose life he touched. It was impossible not to love him,” his family said. “We ask that you please continue to respect our privacy at this devastating time as we begin to process our grief.”
There was a period of silence in tribute to the right back ahead of Thursday's game in the Nations League between England and Greece at Wembley Stadium. Greece won 2-1.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Greece's George Baldock stands on the pitch before the Euro 2024 group B qualifying soccer match between Gibraltar and Greece at the Algarve stadium outside Faro, Portugal, Friday, March 24, 2023. Former Greece international and Panathinaikos defender George Baldock, who had previously played for Sheffield United, has been found dead in his Athens home, Greek media reported.(AP Photo/Joao Matos, File)
A portrait of George Baldock is shown on the screen before the UEFA Nations League Group F soccer match between England and Greece at Wembley Stadium in London, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. England-born Greece international and Panathinaikos defender George Baldock, who had previously played for Sheffield United, has been found dead in his Athens home on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Teams hold a period of silence in tribute to George Baldock before the UEFA Nations League Group F soccer match between England and Greece at Wembley Stadium in London, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. England-born Greece international and Panathinaikos defender George Baldock, who had previously played for Sheffield United, has been found dead in his Athens home on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
LONDON (AP) — A car-ramming at a Christmas market in Germany, which police are treating as an attack, is the latest in a grim series of events in which vehicles have been used as deadly weapons.
There have been a spate of such attacks over the past decade, some committed by groups but most by individuals. The motives – where they could be established – have varied widely. Some were inspired by Islamic militant groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS, which encouraged followers to carry out low-cost, low-tech attacks with cars and trucks. Others have been linked to mental illness, far-right extremism and online misogyny.
What law-enforcement authorities term “vehicle as a weapon attacks” have reshaped cities around the world, as planners erect concrete barriers around public spaces and build anti-vehicle obstacles into new developments.
Here are some major vehicle attacks:
MAGDEBURG, Germany, Dec. 20. 2024 — At least five people are killed and more than 200 injured when a car slams into a Christmas market in eastern Germany. The suspect, who was arrested, is a 50-year-old doctor originally from Saudi Arabia who had expressed anti-Muslim views and support for the far-right AFD party.
ZHUHAI, China, Nov. 11, 2024 — A 62-year-old driver rams his car into people exercising at a sports complex in southern China, killing 35 people in the country’s deadliest mass slaying in years. Authorities said the perpetrator was upset about his divorce but offered few other details.
LONDON, Ontario, June 6, 2021 — Four members of a Muslim family die when an attacker hits them with a pickup truck while they are out for a walk, in what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls “a terrorist attack, motivated by hatred.” White nationalist attacker Nathaniel Veltman was sentenced to life in prison.
TORONTO, April 23, 2018 — A 25-year-old Canadian man, Alek Minassian, drives a rented van into mostly female pedestrians on Yonge St., the main thoroughfare in Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 16. Minassian told police he belonged to the online “incel” community of sexually frustrated men.
NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2017 — Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamic extremist from Uzbekistan, drives a pickup truck onto a popular New York City bike path, killing eight.
BARCELONA, Aug. 17, 2017 — A man driving a van slams into people on the Spanish city’s crowded Las Ramblas boulevard, killing 14 and injuring many others. Several members of the same cell carry out a similar vehicle attack in the nearby resort town of Cambrils before they are shot dead by police. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia, Aug. 12, 2017 — During a “Unite the Right” rally, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. intentionally drives his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens of people.
LONDON: March 22, 2017 — British man Khalid Masood rams an SUV into people on Westminster Bridge, killing four, before stabbing to death a policeman guarding the Houses of Parliament nearby. He is shot dead. June 3, 2017 — three attackers drive a van at pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people in nearby Borough Market. Eight people are killed and the attackers shot dead by police. June 19, 2017 — Darren Osborne, a man radicalized by far-right ideas, drives a van at worshippers outside a mosque in London’s Finsbury Park area, killing one man and injuring 15 people.
MELBOURNE, Australia, Jan 20, 2017 – Six people are killed and more than 30 injured when a car hits lunchtime crowds at a pedestrian mall in Australia’s second-largest city. Perpetrator James Gargasoulas is found to have been in a state of drug-induced psychosis.
BERLIN, December 19, 2016 — Anis Amri, a rejected asylum-seeker from Tunisia, plows a hijacked truck into a Christmas market in the German capital, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. The attacker is killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
NICE, France, July 14, 2016 — Tunisian-born French resident Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drives a rented truck for more than a mile (almost 2 kilometers) along a packed seaside promenade in the French Riviera resort on the Bastille Day holiday, killing 86 people in the deadliest attack of its kind.
APELDOORN, Netherlands, April 28, 2009 – Former security guard Karst Tates drives a car into parade spectators in an attempt to hit an open-topped bus carrying members of the Dutch royal family. Six people are killed and Tates dies of injuries the next day, leaving his full motive a mystery.
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, March 3, 2006 — University of North Carolina graduate Mohammed Taheri-Azar drives an SUV into a crowd at the university, lightly injuring nine people, in a self-professed bid to avenge Muslim deaths overseas.
FILE - Injured people are treated in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017 after a white van jumped the sidewalk in the historic Las Ramblas district, crashing into a summer crowd of residents and tourists. (AP Photo/Oriol Duran, File)
FILE - In this April 23, 2018, file photo, police stand near a damaged van after a van mounted a sidewalk crashing into pedestrians in Toronto. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
FILE - Forensic officers move the van at Finsbury Park in north London, where a vehicle struck pedestrians in north London Monday, June 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 20, 2016 file photo the trailer of a truck stands beside destroyed Christmas market huts in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, file)
FILE - In this July 14, 2016 file photo, authorities investigate a truck after it plowed through Bastille Day revelers in the French resort city of Nice, France, killing 86 people. (Sasha Goldsmith via AP, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, March 22, 2017 file photo, police secure the area on the south side of Westminster Bridge close to the Houses of Parliament in London. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
FILE - People fly into the air as a vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. (Ryan M. Kelly/The Daily Progress via AP, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 20, 2016 file photo Christmas decoration sticks in the smashed window of the cabin of a truck which ran into a crowded Christmas market Monday evening killing several people in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, file)
