Fans behead football ref after quarrel

A football referee in Brazil had his head cut off and mounted on a stake in the middle of the pitch by spectators after he fatally stabbed a player in a red-card dispute.

Before decapitating the referee the crowd stoned him, tied him up and cut off his hands and legs.

The act of barbarity comes as Brazil is trying to revive its international reputation as the host of next year’s World Cup, after massive protests last month that disrupted another international football tournament.

The incident began when Octavio da Silva showed a red card to Josenir dos Santos Abreu, 30, during an amateur match in the remote northeastern town of Pio XII. Abreu refused to leave the pitch, leading to a heated argument in which the player was said to have hit the referee, who then pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed him. The footballer died on the way to hospital.

Enraged fans then invaded the pitch and started stoning the referee. They tied him up and cut off his legs below the knees and his hands. The mob went on to decapitate him and stick his head on a pole, which they put up in the middle of the pitch.

Grim footage leaked from the hospital after the attack showed doctors reassembling the dismembered corpse at the mortuary. ‘‘We will identify and hold accountable all those involved,’’ said Valter Costa, a police spokesman, after the killing on June 30.

‘‘One crime will never justify another.’’

Police were said to have arrested a 27-year-old man and were looking for two others in connection with the murder.

Despite a relative drop in homicides in recent years, Brazil still has one of the worst murder rates in the world, a fact that has worried organisers of the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics scheduled to be held in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2010, almost 50,000 people were murdered. Robbery and rape are also increasing.