Arsenal de Sarandi’s Argentine championship match at home to Atletico Aldosivi was abandoned after half an hour because of fighting among fans that spilled into clashes with police on Monday.
The score was 1-0 to the visitors after a 23rd-minute goal by midfielder Diego Lagos. The Argentine Football Association (AFA) is due to set a new date for the remaining 60 minutes to be played.
Trouble started outside the Estadio Julio H. Grondona in the suburb of Sarandi when rival factions of Arsenal fans fought each other, then clashed with police trying to stop the violence, media reported.
Rubber bullets were fired and stones thrown in the surrounding streets, before fans took their fight onto the terraces, La Nacion said on its Web site.
“The police can’t give me guarantees [that there won’t be more trouble], so I’m going to have to suspend the match,” referee Ariel Penel told broadcaster Futbol Para Todos on the pitch shortly after halting play.
Miguel Angel Scime, head of the Argentine Referees College, said that referees have the power to abandon matches if they deem it necessary in cases of violence.
“Article 162 of the AFA’s statutes says the referee has the absolute legal authority to suspend the match if he so decides after consulting the participants,” Scime said, referring to the teams and security forces.
Two prior incidents of violence this season did not result in matches being abandoned.
“The referee could have suspended the match in which the coach [Gustavo] Alfaro of [Atletico] Tigre was hit in Rosario. The law supports him,” Scime said.
Alfaro was hit by an object thrown from the Estadio Gigante de Arroyito stands, but after several minutes told the referee he could carry on with the match.
Assistant referee Juan Pablo Belatti was hit by a bottle thrown from the crowd at San Lorenzo de Almagro last month, but he told the referee that he could carry on.
More recently, referee German Delfino was hit and winded by a roll of paper thrown from the stands at Atletico de Rafaela, but he decided he could resume play after recovering from the blow.
“This example is enough for us to get together, and take measures once and for all... If something is thrown at you, whether you’re hurt or not, you can’t carry on,” Argentine Referees Association general-secretary Federico Beligoy said.
Referees have called for heavier punishments than ordering clubs to play their next home match behind closed doors, as happened to San Lorenzo and Godoy Cruz Antonio Tomba over the weekend.
“The four legs of the table, the AFA, the players and the two referees unions, should get together to analyze what’s going [on] and seek a solution,” Scime said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier