Former Manchester United academy defender Axel Tuanzebe has launched a High Court claim accusing the club of clinical negligence, alleging its handling of a spinal injury damaged his career and left him with lasting problems. Court papers seen by Sky News say the 27-year-old, now at Burnley, expects to recover more than £1m in damages and contends he can no longer play “without restriction or impediment.”
Tuanzebe, who spent 17 years with United before leaving in 2023 and subsequently had spells with Ipswich Town and Burnley, says the case concerns pars fractures — stress fractures at the back of the spine that can affect footballers. The claim says a left-sided pars fracture was sustained in January 2020 and became chronic by July 2022, after which he developed a right-sided pars fracture. It alleges that had United investigated and treated the injury properly, including rest and referral to a specialist sports spinal surgeon, the condition would not have progressed to bilateral grade 4 fractures and a chronic left-sided injury.
According to the particulars, MRI scans taken after a hamstring issue in a December 2019 League Cup match against Colchester showed a suspected pars fracture. The lawsuit alleges United failed to investigate the pars fractures adequately, did not prescribe the necessary rest, and did not refer Tuanzebe to a specialist. It argues that, on the balance of probabilities, appropriate early treatment would have prevented the pain and functional limitations he now suffers and would have allowed him to continue playing at elite level without restriction.
The claim says a specialist would have advised at least 12 weeks’ rest in January 2020. Instead, Tuanzebe returned to competitive action by March 2020 in the Premier League 2 development competition and was back in first-team action in October 2020 in the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain, where then-manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer publicly praised his performances.
In December 2020 Tuanzebe reported hamstring pain after sprinting; the claim alleges the lower spine was not imaged then. By allowing him to train and play from early 2020 onwards, the lawsuit states United caused him to develop more serious symptoms than he would have suffered if the injury had been diagnosed and managed properly. It further alleges that a proper treatment plan was not implemented until April 2023.
While on loan at Napoli in January 2022 he reported left-sided lower back pain and was scanned by the Italian club. The suit says United’s senior club doctor and head of sports medicine and science at the time, Dr Steve McNally — who left United in December 2022 to join the PGMOL after 16 years at the club — indicated there was no urgency for Tuanzebe to return to Manchester and suggested the problem was “most likely” disc irritation or posture-related and would “usually resolve with physio,” rather than identifying a stress fracture.
The particulars claim United “failed to properly assess, record or attempt to treat the claimant’s fracture in the acute phase” from January 2020 to January 2022, a period when the claim says further examinations and rest were required. Napoli’s doctor reportedly described a CT scan as showing a possible stress fracture — “chronic incomplete lysis of the isthmus of L5 with intact superior cortical profile” — while Dr McNally is said to have noted similar appearances on a 2017 CT and discounted them as the cause of current pain.
After a United referral, pain-relief injections were recommended in March 2022. Despite reporting pain in June 2022, Tuanzebe took part in United’s pre-season tour to Thailand in July but subsequently asked to return to England for treatment. Further MRI and CT scans in August 2022 identified a stress fracture. He returned to full training in January 2023, joined Stoke on loan but made only five appearances because of ongoing discomfort, and was released by United instead of being given a one-year extension.
The claim asserts that permitting Tuanzebe to return to training and to participate in an intensive strength, conditioning and running programme after 17 August 2022 caused him to suffer worse symptoms than would have occurred with proper diagnosis and rest. The particulars were signed by Tuanzebe on 27 October. Manchester United declined to comment.