Friday, December 5, 2008

Riquelme a criminal?

Our tour of South American soccer madness continues this week, this time from perhaps the most famous player/club/stadium on the whole continent. Boca Juniors midfielder Juan Roman Riquelme, after scoring the winning goal against Racing Club, then called out a heckler in the stands. Apparently the result was brawl in the stands involving said fan after Riquelme called him out, and now the district attorney wants to charge the Boca player with inciting violence.

So far this story has been picked up mostly by spanish language media (see here, for example) but Hasta el Gol Siempre has a good recap in english:

After rifling in what proved to be the winning goal, Riquelme ran to the executive boxes and pointedly singled out one fan, who had earlier been insulting the playmaker for reasons best known to himself (but which, at a guess, may have something to do with his form for club and country earlier in the year). There were scuffles in the stands around the fan and Zapata wants to see Riquelme brought up for ‘inciting disorder at a sporting event’.

Riquelme had claimed after the match that the young man - who on Monday appeared on national TV giving his version of events - had been insulting the team throughout the match and looked very nervous after the player had celebrated his second goal. Quite how Riquelme heard this one supporter’s shouting above the Bombonera crowd, he didn’t explain. He did explain what he’d said, though: ‘I only pointed out to him that now, he was celebrating the goal.’

Luis Cevasco, the attorney for the barrio of La Boca, had earlier explained to news channel TN that the investigation had begun after remarks from the officials who’d had to escort the fan from the stand when other supporters expressed their displeasure at him following Riquelme’s second half goal. Riquelme could be tried over contravention of articles 99 and 101 of the Código Contravencional. The possible punishments are a AR$600 to AR$2,000 fine or 10 days’ jail time for the first, and a AR$200 to AR$1,000 fine or five days behind bars for the second
I'm not sure what the problem is here, really. Seems to me this sort of thing happens every other week with Didier Drogba, but I guess he's lucky he doesn't play in Buenos Aires. And its not like the various supporters groups in Argentina don't, you know, murder each other with regularity. Riquelme talking shit to a heckler seems pretty innocuous in comparison.

Source: unprofessionalfoul.com

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