Soccer fans in China were outraged by Zhejiang’s decision to go ahead with a Chinese Super League match hours after the death of their Gabon international striker Aaron Boupendza.
Police have ruled out foul play in the death of the 28-year-old, who died after falling from the 11th floor of a building in Hangzhou on Wednesday afternoon.
Boupendza’s Hangzhou-based club went ahead with a home fixture later on Wednesday against Meizhou Hakka, sparking grief and anger from fans.
Photo: AFP
“Shouldn’t this match have been postponed?” one user wrote on Sina Weibo.
“Why didn’t they postpone the match? The Chinese Super League is really very amateur,” another posted on WeChat.
The match, which ended 2-2, was played in a somber atmosphere with none of the club’s other foreign players taking the field.
Fans chanted Boupendza’s name, held up his shirt and lit up cellphone torches. After the final whistle, Zhejiang’s players and staff approached fans in an act of collective mourning.
Zhejiang’s emotional captain Cheng Jin struggled to answer questions before cutting short his post-match TV interview.
“I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t respect you. I don’t have anything I really want to say,” he said.
Zhejiang’s Spanish head coach Raul Caneda Perez said there was “nothing to say about the game” at his post-match news conference.
“Today is not for talking about football,” he said, through an interpreter. “Football should not be discussed in this context.”
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