After the mass brawl at a soccer tournament in Schärding, there are waves on the internet. The topic is not new: the Upper Austrian Football Association just invited people to discuss “How do we show aggression and violence on the football field the red card.”
The motto “Sport brings people together” seemed to have been relatively unimportant to the adult participants of a hobby soccer tournament in the Schärdingen district sports hall. Because instead of identifying possible differences on the field, two teams got into an argument off it. Fists were flying. First, six Turks and six Romanians are said to have insulted each other on Saturday afternoon, but shortly afterwards fists were flying. But it wasn’t just the athletes who clashed, a number of spectators also got involved “powerfully” – several hundred people are said to have watched the football tournament. Spectators also got involved. Ultimately, there was a mass brawl with around 20 people involved, two of the bullies were so seriously injured injured that they had to be treated on an outpatient basis in the hospital. The organizer of the football tournament is said to have been the IKV-Islamic Cultural Association Schärding, which did not want to comment on the incident. Community condemns incident On krone.at, readers condemned the incident: “Lifetime ban on all football pitches”; “It doesn’t depend on the sport, but rather on the people themselves”; “After football they played fistball,” were the more harmless comments. Escalations again and again, particularly in the hobby sector, violent clashes often occur during football games. It was only on Saturday evening that several young people were said to have seriously injured a hall attendant in Graz because he wanted to deny them access because of a hall ban. And in April of the previous year, a shocking video showed an assistant referee in the Innviertel beating a player with his assistant flag. There was then a mass brawl there and the game had to be stopped. Initiative by the Upper Austrian Football AssociationIn view of current events, an initiative by the Upper Austrian Football Association seems more urgent than ever. At the club coaching conference that took place just the previous week, experts discussed the topic “How do we show the red card to aggression and violence on the football field?” The 150 club representatives present are more challenged than ever. “Long live sport, it is healthy and we like it !” Whether the 20 or so ruffians in Schärding also felt particularly “horrible” can only be speculated here. The fact is: Violence has no place in sport, but it seems to be a problem especially in football. It is not for nothing that a work colleague once said: “We chose our favorite club based on where there is hardly any excesses of violence”. In any case, the bully types should not take the following sarcastic line from the Fendrich hit literally: “Every sport seems a bit boring over time when it gets tougher.”
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