Football is in mourning again after Zambian striker Chaswe Nsofwa of Israeli second division side Hapoel Beer Sheva collapsed and died during a practice match on Wednesday.

Tragically, and almost unbelievably, Nsofwa was the third footballer to die in a little over a week, following Antonio Puerta and the 16-year-old Walsall player Anton Reid. We are lucky it was not four. Leciester City defender Clive Clarke suffered a suspected cardiac arrest at half-time in a match against Nottingham Forest but he is apparently recovering well.

The question most fans are asking is how this can happen to professional athletes, apparently at the peak of fitness.

There have been immediate calls for better and more regular heart screening for players (see comments from Fifa’s chief medical officer, Professor Jiri Dvorak in The Telegraph, for example).

But isn’t it also time we considered whether we are simply asking too much of the players?

I talked over the phone this week to Serbia midfielder Nenad Kovacevic, who was out for a year after collapsing during a league match for his former club Red Star Belgrade in 2003. He added weight to a widespread opinion that there are too many matches in top-level football.

“The game is played at a torrid pace these days and the number of matches top-level players are involved in every season has reached a critical point,” said the 27-year old who now plays for French Ligue 1 side Lens.

“Puerta is not the first casualty but I certainly hope he will be the last.”

It’s a point that was also made in The Times by Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the PFA.

Is it time to make a drastic cut in the number of games we ask our top players to play?

Zoran Milosavljevic