It is known that in football there are moments of tension both on the field and in the stands. Even recurring, although not justified. Also in grassroots football matches, unfortunately. In many cases, fortunately, these frictions do not tend to escalate. Although there are exceptions (more than we would like). One of them occurred on January 27 in a match in group 27 of the second Catalan youth division that faced Club Barcelonista Terlenka (El Prat de Llobregat) and Sagrat Cor de Sarrià (Barcelona). Once the 90 minutes were over, the 16-year-old rival goalkeeper was attacked by a dozen people (some of whom came from the stands) that could have ended in tragedy. While on the ground, the young man received numerous stitches (including in his head) that resulted in several bruises and a fracture of the thumb of his right hand. Obviously, the parents filed a complaint with the Mossos d’Esquadra.
The incident began to unfold in the final minutes of the match, when Sagrat Cor scored the winning goal and L.F. – according to the version of his mother, Patricia – celebrated by making a fist and looking at his teammates. “At that moment I heard someone yell at him: ‘Stop celebrating or I’ll break your legs!’” explains Patricia. Obviously, hearing that phrase directed at her son was not pleasant, but she thought it would not go beyond a threat. She was wrong.
After the final whistle, and according to his testimony, a person – “over 18 years old” – went towards the position of his son, who was greeting rival players, and hit him from behind at the level of his knees, making him fall. Once on the ground, this individual, accompanied by others who also jumped from the stands “and several players from the rival team,” he points out, began to kick him.
“They started giving me stitches, I didn’t understand what was happening,” explains L.F. himself to La Vanguardia. His mind has erased part of what happened: from the first moments of the attack to its end. “The first time I tried to open my eyes while they were beating me I had no vision, everything was black. When I tried to open them again later I could see: there were my parents and the coach.”
Patricia lived the entire scene in fear from the stands. “They have thrown L. to the ground! They have thrown L. to the ground!” She shouted repeatedly to her husband, who immediately jumped onto the field along with other parents on the team to go help the girl. her son “When my husband reached L.,” she continues, “he was shaking, he couldn’t breathe and he had lost his vision.” Seconds later she arrived. “He told me that he was dizzy. I started to touch her head looking for blood and I didn’t find any, but I did notice four lumps: on the side of her head, on the back of her neck… She also complained of pain in her hand and throughout her body. “I was mostly worried about my head.”
Fortunately, as the minutes passed the young man began to feel a little better. The parents took him to the visiting locker room, where his teammates were. Minutes later, Mossos d’Esquadra agents arrived, who advised the family to file a complaint, after visiting the doctor. And that is what the parents did after their son was visited at the Sant Joan de Déu hospital in Barcelona. In addition to the bruises and bruises, the young man has a fractured thumb on his right hand.
His mother is grateful that the attack did not last more than 30 seconds. “If in that short period of time they broke his finger and caused four bruises on his head, imagine what could have happened in a minute,” she says. “He thinks that some of the attackers were players from the other club and they were wearing soccer boots,” she adds.
She defends that there were several soccer players from the local team, and not just one, who attacked her son, although the arbitration report only indicates L.P., also 16 years old. “I imagine that the referee only had time to identify one,” argues the mother of the victim, who asserts that, in total, “between eight and ten people” participated in the attack.
Sources from the Mossos d’Esquadra have confirmed to this newspaper that in addition to the player identified in the report, another “eight or ten more people, aged between 16 and 20, took part in the attack” and that the investigation remains open to identify them.
From Terlenka (as the El Prat de Llobregat club is popularly known) they emphasize that they are collaborating with the Mossos to identify the aggressors. Its vice president, José Francisco Sandoval, who experienced the events live, explains that from his position, about 50 meters from the point of the attack, he saw how a person from the stands hit the rival goalkeeper, he fell to the ground and one of His players – “I only saw one,” he points out – kicked him several times.
He states that situations of this type are “inadmissible”, that “obviously the club is against any type of violence” and that it should be the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office that will have to determine what punishment his player deserves. At the moment, the Catalan Football Federation has sanctioned him with eight games of suspension, and the club with three behind closed doors. Terlenka has appealed the sanction to the entity (an appeal that has been denied), but not to the player.
Sandoval reports that on the Monday following the events they sent an email – this newspaper has seen it – to the Sagrat Cor de Sarrià in which they apologized for what happened and asked about the condition of the attacked player. He assures that they have handed over to the Mossos the recordings of the cameras distributed throughout the premises and that they record the accesses and all the files of their players from cadets to amateurs. Furthermore, and as a result of the conversations they have had with club players, they believe they have been able to identify two people – “one is a player from another team of ours who jumped onto the field from the stands and the second a player from another entity” – who They could have participated in the attack, information that they have transferred to the Mossos.
The Catalan Football Federation (FCF), in the mouth of its general secretary, Oriol Camacho, describes the incident as “especially serious.” He explains that that same weekend they were already aware of the altercation and that at the federative level, and after analyzing the arbitration report and collecting the information transmitted by the clubs involved in the events, they decided to impose a three-game sanction on the Terlenka club. behind closed doors and eight suspensions for the player involved.
He states that, as a general rule, the file that arises as a result of an incident ends up in the competition committees and that they, in turn, open their corresponding files, with deadlines for formulating allegations. Once all the documentation has been analyzed, the corresponding sanctions are imposed as set out in the general regulations and established by the sports law of Catalonia (legislative decree 1/2000 of July 31).
“The case in question ended with a sanction for serious public incidents (there were aggressors who came from the stands) and the maximum punishment was imposed, which is three games behind closed doors,” he argues. For his part, the player involved, who is identified in the referee’s report, was sanctioned for eight games.
What the sports law in Catalonia establishes is that when a potentially harmful injury is caused, it has a sanction of 5 to 12 games, and when a sports absence or work absence is accredited – “which is not the case”, he emphasizes Camacho-, the sanction can range from 25 games to one season. “If it could be proven that the player involved was responsible for the fracture of the rival goalkeeper’s finger, he would surely have had a greater sanction.”
Now that the sanction is final through the federation, the file will go to the sports ethics and fight against violence commission, which is also an organ of the FCF and which monitors serious events. “In this case, we have to see whether or not the aggressor spectators have a connection with the club, for example. This commission will ask Terlenka to identify the aggressors and ask what internal measures they have adopted and how they acted.”
If the spectators who participated in the attack are identified by the club, they will automatically be reported to the subcommittee against violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sport of the Generalitat of Catalonia, of which the FCF is a part. “These people would be subject to personal sanctions (issued by the general directorate of security administration, another body of the Generalitat) that would range from 600 to 6,000 euros in fines and a ban on access to sports venues for up to one year” . If they are not identified, the case will also be submitted to the subcommittee for study, “since it is possible that the club will be administratively sanctioned, as it is evident that the necessary prevention measures did not exist to guarantee safety at the sporting event.” ”. The amount would also range from 600 to 6,000 euros and the closure of the playing field for up to a maximum of one year.
Camacho emphasizes that it is the first time this season that the FCF imposes a three-match ban behind closed doors on a club and that during the entire last season they applied it on one occasion. He also points out that “for the second round match [scheduled for May 26] there will be planning with a police presence and a federation observer.” He remembers that under the umbrella of the FCF 165,000 matches are organized a year (about 6,000 a week) and that throughout last season they recorded 11 serious incidents.
