Dutch football matches to be suspended if players or officials are attacked
-
Loading... - Gerlach Liam
- 07 Apr 2023
- 58 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
Dutch football association KNVB has tightened its regulations regarding fan interference in matches. The referee will immediately suspend matches in the future if a football player is struck by an object thrown by spectators. The match will also be discontinued and will not resume if a spectator enters the pitch and attacks players or the referee, the KNVB said on Thursday.
If objects are thrown on the field and no one is hit, the referee will, from now on, decide to stop play and both teams will depart for their changing rooms. The referee will still definitively stop the match if objects from the stands end up on the field again after play resumes.
Moving forward, the referee will also stop play if a spectator enters the field without attacking anyone. The referee will put a definitive end to the match if an audience member steps on the pitch for the second time in the game. "Thanks to these steps, potential perpetrators will hopefully no longer take it into their heads to attack the main players on the field. We are completely done with that," said Marianne van Leeuwen, the association's director of professional football.
The measures were announced in response to an incident during the Dutch Cup semifinal between Feyenoord and Ajax, where a fan threw an object that struck Ajax midfielder Davy Klaassen in the head. Klaassen was bleeding from a wound at the back of his head as a result. The footballer had scored his team's second goals just minutes earlier. The match was temporarily suspended for a half-hour, and when play resumed, Klaassen was substituted after reporting symptoms of dizziness. Ajax went on to win the match 2-1 on Wednesday evening. Read More…
