A coach takes his youth from the field after hearing racist shouts at a player

Racism once again stains grassroots football in this country.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
15 November 2022 Tuesday 06:38
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A coach takes his youth from the field after hearing racist shouts at a player

Racism once again stains grassroots football in this country. This time it happened last Friday in a youth match between the Tenerife club UD La Laguna and AD Longuera. While the ball rolled through the green of the Antonio Yeowars de Los Realejos field, a fan began to rebuke a player with racist shouts.

The referee heard the insults and reported it to the coaches, which is why the rival coach decided to take his team out of the match.

The stands already had a heated atmosphere at the start of the game, but everything exploded after a goal from the local team. At that moment of exaltation, various fans would have begun to insult some opponents. It was when the referee clearly heard the expression "shit monkey" directed towards a Laguna player and, immediately afterwards, the visiting coach decided to leave the field of play.

The action has been more than applauded by the president of the club, José Ángel Torres, who has also announced that his teams will not play a match on this ground again until Longuera condemns the violent and racist acts.

In a statement, Laguna added that their players had to remain locked in the locker room due to the danger of receiving attacks and insults. Three batches of police officers were required for the evacuation of the footballers to be carried out safely.

“If they had another provision, we would change the decision, but for now they have only denied what happened. We must reflect on this and we must act decisively. If not, we will never end violence in football," Torres said.

Although the consequences for the local club is usually the closure of its stadium for two days and a fine, the president of Laguna wanted to take some of the iron off the matter, pointing out that "this can happen to all teams, but the important thing It is the way to act and turn the fields into safe spaces”

"I hope that all this, our position and the way we express ourselves and tell all the media and institutions what happened, will serve to eradicate violence when it occurs, to take a step forward," he said.