{"id":353330,"date":"2023-12-11T22:15:19","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T23:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=353330"},"modified":"2023-12-12T00:01:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T00:01:43","slug":"football-referee-punched-by-furious-owner-in-ugly-brawl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=353330","title":{"rendered":"Football referee punched by furious owner in ugly brawl"},"content":{"rendered":"

A football<\/a> referee has been punched to the ground in a vicious assault by an angry club president in a wild full-time brawl in Turkey.<\/p>\n

MKE Ankaragucu president Faruk Koca ran onto the pitch and punched referee Halil Umut Meler in the face after his team conceded an injury-time equaliser to Caykur Rizespor in Turkey's top-level Super Lig.<\/p>\n

Meler was immediately floored by the first blow, and then received several more kicks as he laid on the ground while attempting to protect his head from the repeated beating.<\/p>\n

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The incident triggered a massive melee involving players and club officials.<\/p>\n

\"Referee<\/p>\n

Koca was eventually taken to hospital, but Turkish internal affairs minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a statement "detention procedures would be carried out" on the president after he was treated.<\/p>\n

Several others were also arrested while Meler was left sporting a nasty black eye.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"I condemn the attack on referee Halil Umut Meler after the MKE Ankaragucu-\u00c7aykur Rizespor match played this evening, and I wish him a speedy recovery," Turkish president Recep Erdogan said.<\/p>\n

"Sports means peace and brotherhood. Sport is incompatible with violence. We will never allow violence to take place in Turkish sports."<\/p>\n

\"Referee<\/p>\n

In their own statement, MKE Ankaragucu \u2013 who were the home side \u2013 apologised to the broader Turkish football "and entire sports community for the sad incident".<\/p>\n

MKE Ankaragucu took the lead in the 14th minute, before the referee issued a second yellow card in the same game to a star player \u2013 which automatically became a red \u2013 in the 95th minute.<\/p>\n

With the player advantage, Caykur Rizespor equalised minutes later.<\/p>\n

Meler was\ufeff assaulted almost immediately after the full-time whistle.<\/p>\n

Meler is listed as an 'elite' level referee by FIFA, and has refereed Internationals and other high-profile matches, including in the UEFA Champions League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A football referee has been punched to the ground in a vicious assault by an angry club president in a wild full-time brawl in Turkey. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":353332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353330"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":353335,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353330\/revisions\/353335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/353332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}