17 red cards in a Copa Bolivia match! Police use tear gas
A football match in Bolivia was rocked by extensive violence, which witnessed a whopping 17 red cards given, and the police were forced to launch tear gas to suppress the chaos that ensued. The match was a Copa Bolivia quarterfinal, held between Blooming and Real Oruro. A big scuffle broke out after Oruro’s Sebastin Zeballos and Julio Vila were involved in physical altercations with the opposition team. Coach Marcelo Robledo allegedly confronted a member of the national team’s coaching contingent as well. With the scuffle turning ugly, police officers had to step in with tear gas to control the situation. The official match score sheet revealed that seven Blooming players were sent off while Oruro lost four. Members of the coaching staff also got sent off, taking the total number of reds to 17. A number of players are facing bans, too. Curiously, Zeballos was not admonished despite being the instigator of the fracas.
FPAI ties up with Rapid Sports Fitness for the footballers’ rehabilitation program
Looking forward to the health and welfare of the current and former Indian footballers, the Football Players Association of India (FPAI) has signed an MoU with Rapid Sport Fitness (RSF), based in Bengaluru. The amalgamation has been made primarily to provide high-quality rehabilitation services to players nationwide at an affordable rate. Citing an example, FPAI president Mehrajuddin Wadoo revealed, “If an RSF charges from a footballer Rs 2000 normally, then FPAI card-holder footballers will get the same treatment at a discounted rate of around Rs 600 or Rs 700.” FPAI has more than 500 card-holding footballers across the country currently. Interestingly, the organisation is also going to make a similar amalgamation with a Kolkata-based rehabilitation centre for the Kolkata-based footballers exclusively. Mehrajuddin added, “Not only the footballers of the p/resent generation, former India internationals like Alvito D’Cunha, Mehtab Hussain, have also been given FPAI cards so that they can also avail the modern system of rehabilitation program from this rehab centre.” A couple of renowned Indian footballers like Sunil Chhetri, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Chinglensana Singh, Ashalata Devi, and Sweety Devi were present at the recently held MoU signing event. They expressed strong support for the initiative and encouraged FPAI and other stakeholders to continue introducing such essential programs for the advancement of Indian football. Significantly, RSF has also been working with the men’s senior national football team as well as the women’s national team for the last couple of years
