A Álava youth Preferential match played last Sunday between Lakua B and Mercedarias at the Sansomendi field had … had to be suspended in the 22nd minute after a double attack occurred between players, a fight and a field invasion. These events forced the judge to abruptly stop the match, as EL CORREO has been able to verify in the match minutes, “given the impossibility of guaranteeing order and the physical integrity of the participants.”
The match was almost halfway through the first half with a partial 1-0 victory for the local team when a foul by a visiting player on a Lakua player lit the fuse. The local team player stood up after the action and “directly headbutted” the Mercedarias footballer. The latter, however, responded by “throwing a punch and hitting him in the face” of the first. The referee also notes that after this double attack, both players “take a guard position, placing their own fists in front of their faces.” The referee immediately approached and, after separating the players “as much as possible”, sent them both off for a straight red card.
But the scenario, far from calming down, escalated very quickly. First, a fight was formed with several players from both teams who were on the field. Some, with a desire to “separate”; Others “proceed to confront the two involved, pushing them and making them more angry.” There the referee chose to take some distance from the tangana as he saw his physical integrity “at risk”. This crowd made it impossible for him to identify the attitude and actions of each of those present.
At that moment, “the members of the bench of both teams”, both “substitute players, coaches and delegates” joined the brawl. It is then that for the first time the referee warns that he seriously considers stopping the match. “If it doesn’t stop, I’ll suspend the game,” he says, although in several people he perceives “clear intentions to separate the players and calm the situation.” Without success. What’s more, “practically at the same moment that I am saying this phrase” the last people involved arrive: “people dressed in street clothes, including fathers, mothers and uncalled players” from both teams who run towards the fight. “Without knowing their intentions,” details the referee. This led him to definitively suspend the match in the 22nd minute of it.
However, the incidents do not end there. As the referee records in the official document, the exit to the locker room was run over. At the entrance, members of both teams addressed him. “They begin to tell me their perspectives of what happened, arguing among themselves with their voices raised.” The situation remained tense, so the referee preferred to request police presence on the premises. There, “five agents” from the Ertzaintza showed up, and some more later joined them.
“Custody” to leave
Before the arrival of the uniformed men, the commotion at the locker room door – the referee was already in his own, although it could not be closed as it did not have a latch – continued. There the trainee heard “screams of threats and insults in everyone much louder”, but “without identifying those involved.” Nor does it register the recipient or recipients thereof. At that time, the “fathers and mothers” of the players also witnessed the scene.
The arrival of the agents calmed the waters, although they took statements from all parties and offered the referee “custody to be able to leave the facilities safely.” He accepts “without hesitation” and leaves the field more than an hour after the first incidents, at 5:30 p.m. He did not finish recording everything in the minutes, already at his home, until 7:11 p.m.
