Goalkeeper Jesús Owono experiencing ‘hardest days of my life’ after De Miguel’s death

The FC Andorra goalkeeper Jesús Owono said he was enduring the “hardest days of my life” after he was involved in the collision that led to the death of the Tenerife striker Jesús de Miguel.

Owono had raced out of his goal and crashed into De Miguel during added time at the end of the Spanish second division match on Monday afternoon, causing the striker to experience a cardiorespiratory arrest. De Miguel was taken to hospital in Santa Cruz de Tenerife but never regained consciousness and died on Tuesday morning.

Related: Tenerife footballer Jesús de Miguel dies aged 30 after on-pitch collision

“These are being the hardest days of my life,” Owono said in a statement published by Andorra. “I find it hard to find the words and very difficult to assimilate what has happened. I feel a huge pain, the loss of Jesús. I am thinking about him, his family and all the people who loved him.

“I know that there will be many questions to address and I will face up to whatever comes with respect. But right now, sincerely, I cannot think about anything other than Jesús and the pain that we are going through. Rest in peace, Jesús.”

Andorra’s statement said that the club remained “deeply affected” by De Miguel’s death and demanded “the greatest respect and sensibility”. The homicide division of the Spanish national police opened an investigation, which is standard procedure in Spain whenever there is a death not by natural causes. Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s chief prosecutor, José Luis Sánchez-Jáuregui, told the Spanish news agency EFE that criminal proceedings against the goalkeeper were “very unlikely”.

The investigation will focus on the events that preceded De Miguel’s death, including the attention he received after medics sprinted on to the pitch. De Miguel was treated on the field for five minutes before being taken off on a stretcher and to an ambulance that waited in the corner. Tenerife had reported that medics were able to recover a pulse in the ambulance before he was admitted to intensive care.

“We can’t say if they acted correctly or incorrectly, but we can demand that all the emergency procedures follow international standards of correct practice,” Elvira González, the president of Spain’s Association of Nurses, Emergency Medics and Caregivers, told the Associated Press. “There is contradictory information. The first thing we need to know is where and when he supposedly recovered a pulse. The first minutes are critical. You can only move a person once a pulse is restored.”

Tenerife’s majority shareholder, Rayco García, told Cadena Ser radio: “There are those who say that the impact caused his death, and that later they were able to stabilise him artificially even though it was very difficult to bring him back. I prefer to wait for the autopsy and then we can take steps. I would like to see [the results of] the investigation to know if there is something to ensure this doesn’t happen again, something that could have prevented this tragedy.”

Owono had earlier been defended by his teammate Lautaro Spatz, who wrote on social media: “I also ‌want to say a few words about my teammate, goalkeeper ‌and friend, who is deeply affected by what has happened. Those of us who know him know the kind of person he is, how much he is suffering at this moment, and that he ‌would never intentionally hurt anyone. In football, unfortunate incidents can happen, but no one could imagine that one of them might end with such tragic consequences.”

The Equatoguinean Football Federation expressed its support, saying that Owono, who has 47 caps for the country, was going through a situation of profound sorrow and grief.

Owono was sent off for the challenge and immediately walked towards the touchline, only to turn back as staff began running in the other direction. The goalkeeper deactivated his Instagram account on Tuesday after receiving abuse online, with some users commenting “murderer” on his posts. Andorra said they were offering psychological support to anyone at the club who needed it after De Miguel’s death. The Tenerife president, Felipe Miñambres, had said they would need “professional help”.

De Miguel, 30, was married and had an 18-month-old child, both of whom were in the stadium when the incident happened. Flowers have been left at the stadium by gate nine, his shirt number, and a minute’s silence was held at the Canarian government building.

De Miguel’s body laid at the Tanatorio Santa Lastenia funeral parlour in Santa Cruz before being flown to the Spanish mainland yesteron Wednesday afternoon. Tenerife’s players and staff will fly to Madrid on a charter thison Thursday morning and go from there to the village of Navahermosa in Toledo province, where De Miguel’s parents are from, for the funeral. A final homage will be held at Tenerife’s Heliodoro Rodriguez López stadium on Saturday evening.