Brian Laudrup vows to win cancer fight

Former Denmark and Chelsea striker Brian Laudrup has disclosed he is battling against lymphatic cancer, a fight the 41-year-old insisted Wednesday he would win.

Laudrup revealed his plight in a statement, saying he had been “shocked by the doctor’s diagnosis”.

“There’s a hard battle in front of me, a battle that I am going to win,” said Laudrup, who was part of Denmark’s 1992 Europan championship winning team.

He added that he had been heartened by his doctors’ “very optimistic comments”.

The former forward, the brother of Michael Laudrup, had spells with nine different clubs during his 1986-200 playing career, including Bayern Munich, Rangers, Ajax and Chelsea.

On the international front he won 88 caps and scored 21 goals.

Since hanging up his boots he has worked as a commentator for Scandinavian television station TV3.

He explained that he had decided to go public on his illness to put to an end “all the rumours, half-truths and myths” about the state of his health.

Laudrup preferred not to elaborate about the nature of his cancer in an interview with Wednesday’s BT, telling the newspaper: “I’m a very reserved person when it comes to my private life and I don’t want to say any more other than what appeared in the statement.”

However, he did reiterate that he was going to fight the disease, insisting that he was “very optimistic about being cured (as the cancer), which was diagnosed at an early stage, is a moderate form of lymphatic cancer”.

“I will be devoting lots of energy in the coming weeks to dealing with this shock and to spending quality time with family and friends in order to move on after this diagnosis.”