Seven footballers were sent off and eight yellow-carded after a mass brawl erupted during a crunch match in Bolivia, which required police intervention and the use of tear gas.
Five players were given their marching orders for their part in an on-pitch brawl towards the end of the first half in Saturday’s bad-tempered Bolivian Primera Division contest between Blooming and Bolivar.
And the match officially went down as out of the most red-card-filled matches in South American top-tier football when two more players were ordered off in the second period.
Tempers first flared six minutes from the end of the first half when Blooming goalkeeper Braulio Uraezana rushed to remonstrate with rival Damian Batallani after the Argentinian winger had collided with him during a duel.
Batallani’s team-mates saw things differently, calling for a penalty and going to aid the footballer as he lay writhing in pain on the ground by one of the puddles covering the pitch following heavy rain.
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Both sets of players were seen kicking, pushing and punching each other in the melee that ensued. Uraezana – who was among those knocked to the ground – returned to his feet and used his fists to land punches on those attacking him.
Police officers forming part of the crowd control operation ran across the goalline area where the mass fight occurred to try to restore peace.
Hosts Blooming, with four players red-carded and just seven on the pitch by the final whistle, lost 2-1 to Bolivar, who finished the encounter with eight men on the pitch. The visitors scored their winning goal three minutes into stoppage time.
There were hopes the tension may have died down as play was brought to a halt, but violence continued in the changing rooms after the final whistle, with police having to use tear gas to restore order.
The decision was subsequently made for the managers’ post-match press conferences to be cancelled.
Amazingly, the Bolivian press pointing out that Saturday’s match wasn’t the worst in the country’s footballing history for the most reds ever – the record coming Blooming 2-0 defeat of The Strongest 2-0 back in 1999.
The Bolivian Football Federation confirmed afterwards that it was considering sanctioning both teams.
Bolivar goalkeeper Carlos Lampe, who also plays for the Bolivia national team, said: ‘I was concerned about what happened at the end of the game.
‘That can’t happen. They hit our goalkeeping coach, they got into a fistfight. There wasn’t enough security. The two dressing rooms are very close together.’
Team-mate Daniel Catano, meanwhile, one of those red-carded, had harsh words for the referee afterwards telling reporters: ‘There was a scuffle, there was pushing and shoving, but I never hit any of my opponents.
‘The referee got carried away by the emotion of the moment and didn’t know how to handle the game.
‘It ended up being played in an absurd way, something that hasn’t happened in soccer for a long time, with so many players sent off.’
One appalled Bolivian football fan reacted by telling their followers on social media: ‘For these sorts of things we’ve got the worst football in South America.’
The most red cards brandished in Premier League history is three, which has occurred several times.
Seven weeks ago, a female referee was slapped in the face after she sent a player off during a match in Colombia.The shocking incident occurred during a game between Deportivo Quique and Real Alianza at the Chelo Castro Stadium in Aracataca.
In the 66th minute of the match, Vanessa Ceballos approached the substitutes’ bench to give a red card to Real Alianza’s Javier Bolivar for unsportsmanlike conduct.
But as Ceballos produced the red card, Bolivar stood up from the bench and confronted the female official. He then raised his right hand and slapped her in the mouth before he was pulled away.
Bolivar apologised for his actions in a subsequent statement but appeared to deny he had deliberately assaulted anyone saying he had just been trying to remove the whistle from the referee’s mouth.