Marcelo Bielsa (Photo: Wikipedia)
Uruguay coach Marcelo Bielsa has said his players deserve an apology, not sanctions, after they took to the stands at Bank of America Stadium and got into a fight with Colombian fans after his team lost 1-0 in the Copa America semi-final.
An angry Bielsa criticised tournament organisers for not doing enough to protect the families of the players behind the Uruguayan bench, justifying the fact that players were taking matters into their own hands to protect their loved ones.
“We are in the United States, the country of safety,” Bielsa said through an interpreter during an emotional 45-minute press conference on Friday.
“How can you not defend your mother, your sister, a baby? If they didn’t, they would have been condemned by all of us.”
CONMEBOL, the South American football confederation, said on Thursday that its disciplinary committee has opened an investigation.
“It is unacceptable that an incident like this leads to passion and violence,” the federation said in a statement.
When asked if he feared sanctions against his team, Bielsa flew into a rage.
“The sanctions do not necessarily have to be for the footballers, but for those who forced them to behave this way,” Bielsa said.
“This is a witch hunt. It’s a disgrace.”
Uruguay had the option of seating families in luxury boxes instead of in the crowd.
The team will return to the same venue on Saturday night for the third-place match against Canada. While the crowd is expected to be more subdued, the same level of security is planned.
A jubilant crowd of more than 70,000, the vast majority wearing Colombian colors, attended Wednesday night’s game at the downtown Charlotte stadium, home to NFL teams the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC.
There were only a few small groups of Uruguayan fans in the crowd at the start of the match, many of whom were seated behind the team’s bench.
After an emotional and physical match that saw seven yellow cards and one red, a fight broke out in the stands and drinks were thrown. There was pushing and punching. The melee grew in terms of the size of the people involved before more than a dozen Uruguayan players, including Darwin Nez, climbed a small set of portable steps into the crowd.
Bielsa said that not enough precautions had been taken and that there was no emergency exit for Uruguay fans. Many members of the Uruguayan Football Association delegation escaped the fighting by climbing down onto the pitch, while Mecklenburg County police and security restored order as the stadium was evacuated.
The skirmish in the stands lasted more than five minutes.
At one point during the press conference, Bielsa got into a heated exchange with a reporter, who left halfway through.
“You should have asked me if we got an apology, not if I fear sanctions,” Bielsa shouted.
Bielsa went on to attack media outlets, saying: “Journalism responds to the interests of those who exercise 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 had not planned to talk about the incident but could not resist.
“I’m very afraid of sporting revenge,” Bielsa said.
“They always threaten you in sports. Here the message was that we cannot defend your family and we cannot allow them to escape. What sanction are they talking about with me? What we have to see is when they are going to apologize.”
Sebastin Cceres was the latest Uruguayan player to express his concerns about the turn of events.
“What happened after the game, anyone would have done,” said Cceres.
“I went to check on my family and I tried to take a teammate with me to prevent it from happening.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: Jul 13, 2024 | 1:52 PM IST