Uruguay coach Marcelo Bielsa on Friday said that his players deserve an apology, not sanctions, for going into the stands at Bank of America Stadium and participating in a fight with Colombia fans following his team’s 1-0 Copa America semi-final loss.
An angry Bielsa criticized tournament organizers for not doing enough to protect the families of players seated behind the Uruguay bench and he justified players taking matters into their own hands to protect their loved ones.
“We are in the United States, the country of security,” Bielsa said through an interpreter during an emotional 45-minute news conference. “How can you not defend your mother, your sister, a baby? If they did not do it, they would have been condemned by all of us.”
Photo: Jim Dedmon-USA Today
CONMEBOL, South American soccer’s governing body, on Thursday said that its disciplinary committee opened an investigation.
“It is unacceptable that an incident like this turns passion into violence,” the federation said in a statement.
Asked if he feared sanctions for his team, Bielsa grew irate.
“The sanction does not have to be for the players, but for those who forced them to act like this,” Bielsa said. “This is a witch hunt. It is a shame.”
Uruguay had the option of seating families in luxury boxes instead of in the crowd.
A raucous crowd of more than 70,000 — the vast majority of whom were wearing Colombia’s colors — attended the match on Wednesday at the downtown Charlotte stadium, home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and Major League Soccer’s Charlotte FC.
There were only a few small patches of Uruguay fans in the crowd at the start of the game, many of them behind the team’s bench.
After an emotional and physical game that included seven yellow cards and one red, a fight broke out in the stands and drinks were thrown. Shoving and punches ensued. The melee grew in terms of the magnitude of people involved before more than a dozen Uruguay players, including Darwin Nunez, climbed a small set of portable stairs into the crowd.
Bielsa said that not enough precautions were in place and an emergency exit path for Uruguay fans was not provided.
Many in the Uruguayan soccer association delegation got away from the fighting by climbing down onto the playing field while Mecklenburg County Police and security restored order as the stadium was cleared.
The melee in the stands lasted more than five minutes.
At one point during the news conference, Bielsa got into a heated exchange with a reporter who left halfway through.
“You should have asked me if we have received an apology, not if I fear sanctions,” Bielsa said.
Bielsa went on to attack media firms, saying “journalism responds to the interests of those who administer power, who are the ones who distribute the money. There is a percentage of journalism that responds to this. Those who do not respond to the interests of power are the ones who suffer because they are loyal.”
Bielsa said he did not plan to talk about the incident, but could not hold back.
“I am very afraid of sports revenge,” Bielsa said. “They always threaten you in sports. Here the message was we cannot defend your family and we cannot allow them to flee. What sanction are they talking to me about? What we have to see is when are they going to apologize.”
Sebastian Caceres was the latest Uruguay player to express concern over how the events unfolded.
“What happened after the game is something that anyone would have done,” Caceres said. “I went up to check that my family was OK and I tried to take a teammate with me so that it wouldn’t continue.”
There are two games left in the tournament. Uruguay are to play Canada this morning Taiwan time in the playoff for third, while Argentina and Colombia are to contest the final tomorrow.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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