A controversial refereeing decision leads to fisticuffs between the president of the losing team and the referee after an Argentinian Cup match.
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- Tumultuous scenes break out in Argentina after a Cup match.
- In the catacombs of the Estadio Malvinas Argentinas, a club president and a referee get into a fight.
- What exactly happened remains unclear for the time being. According to Argentinian media, however, fists and pistols were involved.
- A video of the confrontation emerged on Monday.
Andrés Merlos and Andrés Fassi are the protagonists of the latest football drama to reach us from Argentina. Merlos is a referee, Fassi is the president of Club Atlético Talleres. The fact that the two don't like each other very much was made clear at the cup match between Talleres and the big Boca Juniors at the weekend.
The teams drew 1-1 on Saturday evening, with Boca Juniors narrowly prevailing in the subsequent penalty shoot-out and Talleres being eliminated from the Argentinian Cup.
"They came into the dressing room with a gun"
According to president Fassi, the blame for his club's defeat lies squarely with referee Merlos. He had allowed play to continue in a scene shortly before Boca Juniors' opening goal, even though the ball was supposed to have already left the pitch. There was no VAR in this game.
Reason enough for Fassi to confront the referee in the catacombs of the Estadio Malvinas Argentinas after the game. "Two people came into my changing room with a gun, they just had to pull the trigger," Merlos described the crazy scene to Argentinian broadcaster "TyC Sports".
"They started shouting at me and told me they were going to kill me. The guard put his hand in his pocket and I saw the butt of a gun." These are harsh accusations directed at the Talleres president. Nevertheless, referee Merlos is not sure whether the action will have consequences for Fassi. "It's unfortunate, sad and painful what happened. There is no explanation for what Fassi is doing, he has an incredible impunity."
Did the referee strike?
A completely different account of what happened was given in the days following the game by the Talleres president himself. He claimed that it was the referee who suddenly turned violent during the confrontation in the stadium's catacombs. "He started shouting at me! Exactly the opposite of what normally happens in this kind of situation, because I've often been the one shouting at a referee," Fassi points out.
"He became completely irrational and angry, so much so that the other referees started to hold him back because he was trying to attack me," says the club president.
Merlos even insisted that he follow him into the changing room, but he "naturally decided against" following the referee "in that state". Shortly afterwards, the referee stormed out of the dressing room again and used physical force.
"I was four or five meters away from the door, he came straight at me and punched me on the right cheekbone," said Fassi, describing the situation. "I was completely stunned and thought: 'What a crazy thing this man has just done, I've never seen a referee hit a club president before'."
Video of the brawl emerges
But the crazy story doesn't end there. After the referee became violent, Gustavo Gatti, the club's vice-president, also got involved. "You're crazy, how can you hit the president," he is said to have asked the referee, Fassi recalls - and continues: "What did Mr. Gatti get then? A kick to the liver from Mr. Merlos, which threw him back two meters from the dressing room door. That's the end of this embarrassing and sad event, which I've never experienced before."
The two stories have since been played out several times by the Argentinian media. Now a video from the stadium's catacombs that emerged on Monday should shed some light on the situation.
It shows a confrontation between the two parties in a corridor beneath the stadium. However, apart from a visible scuffle and a lot of shouting, not much can be seen in the video footage. One person goes down during the scuffle. It is not clear whether it is Fassi, Merlos or Gatti. However, "TyC Sports" claims to have seen a "blow from the referee".
This is not the first time that Fassi and Merlos have clashed. Back in 2022, there was a heated argument between them following a defeat for Talleres against Central Cordoba de Santiago del Estero. As a result of this incident, the AFA disciplinary court punished the Talleres president for "insulting the referee on internal premises" and suspended him for 30 days.