‘Someone could die in school soccer brawls’
IT’S only a matter of time before someone is killed in a schools soccer brawl, it has been warned following a spate of such fracas in Dublin recently.
Seven schoolboy football games have had to be abandoned in the last six weeks because of ‘mass brawls’ during matches.
Many of the bust-ups include coaches, managers and spectators punching each other.
The Dublin and District Schoolboys League yesterday issued a statement warning the fights ‘will result in a serious injury or a fatality before too long’ and said it is introducing a new policy to target adults who join the punch-ups.
The president of the DDSL said some parents get ‘red mist’ when a decision doesn’t go the right way and then start a fight ‘more akin to a mixed martial arts event than a young players’ football match’.
‘It is inevitable that failure to eradicate the number of violent incidents on the pitch that lead to or end in brawls will result in a serious injury or a fatality before too long. We cannot allow this to happen within our game,’ the DDSL said in a statement.
In a bid to curb these violent outbreaks during games, the DDSL executive has said that it will be fining a club €500 and handing them a six-point deduction for a first offence. For subsequent offences, the team will be relegated by at least one division.
Further problems will result in the team being removed from the league altogether and ultimately the team’s club will be expelled.
Players who are found to be involved in an incident that leads to a brawl or an abandonment of a game will face a mandatory six-week suspension.
Speaking on RTÉ News yesterday, DDSL president Paddy Dempsey said that the fights are becoming more prevalent.
‘We’ve about 800 games every weekend that we control, 20,000 children playing and some of the games’ incidents happen where players for whatever reason, in a tackle or feel aggrieved, and they push or strike out at one another and this leads to coaches and managers and spectators running on and becoming [involved] in the brawl and the game ends up with a free-for-all,’ said Mr Dempsey.
He said the DDSL organisers will be targeting the adults attending games because ‘the children will follow what the adults are doing and that is the problem’.
‘If the adults become involved and they start throwing punches and pushing and verbally abusing officials, the young players then do likewise and we’ll end up in a serious incident or injury to some player or some parent,’ he said.
Mr Dempsey said of the adults who get involved: ‘I don’t actually think they realise the seriousness of what they are doing. They think because it is a football game or a sporting occasion that it is OK to do this. If this happened on the street they would be arrested and charged with assault.
‘It is not acceptable in society, it is really not acceptable in a sporting [event] and more in particular it is not acceptable with children’s football.’
Violent conduct during sporting events has made headlines in recent weeks. Late last month, a brawl broke out during a county semi-final GAA football match in Kerry between Dingle and East Kerry. Video shared online after the incident showed violent scenes playing out in front of the Dingle dugout early in the second half.
Both clubs were fined €1,000 for the incident and a Dingle selector received an eight-week suspension after he struck an East Kerry footballer. The incident left a number of players on the ground and East Kerry finishing the game with 13 men.
On the rollout of punishments, Mr Dempsey said: ‘The best we can do is we can suspend the players that incite the brawl in the first place, that is the easy part.
‘We can then bring in the managers and the clubs and we can heavily fine them and suspend them, but the ultimate sanction would be to remove them from the league and that is where we’re heading.’
‘It is not acceptable in society’
BY any reckoning, the warning from the Dublin and District Schoolboys League regarding violence on the pitch is pretty extraordinary. Anyone who goes along to these games, however, will know only too well that the problem often lies with parents watching from the sidelines. They can be incredibly aggressive when it comes to disputing decisions made by referees.
It is little wonder that some matches proceed amid an atmosphere of unbridled hostility. Nor, for the avoidance of doubt, is the problem confined to soccer alone.
Credit where it is due, the members of the League executive are absolutely right to highlight this issue. We can only hope that the offending adults learn to cop themselves on. It is, after all, only a game – and there are children involved.