A LATVIAN soccer team will quit playing in an Irish league if xenophobic and thuggish behaviour is not stamped out.
Immigrant soccer players in the O’Neill’s Leinster Football League have risen in protest against unacceptable behaviour from some of the league’s teams. The players say they are being continually abused both verbally and physically by sides that play “so-called football”.
The protest reached fever pitch last week after a savage attack on a Latvian player in Dublin.
After a game in Phoenix Park on Sunday 1 March, the captain of D-Pils – a team composed mostly of Latvians – was violently head-butted, leaving him with a badly bleeding lip and nose. An ambulance and gardaí were called to the scene.
A large crowd witnessed the incident, including the match referee, who has filed a report with the league. A spokesperson for O’Neill’s Leinster Football League confirmed that the matter is being investigated.
Metro Éireann understands that the attack, which came minutes after full-time, was in retaliation for a prior scuffle on the pitch. That fight had been interrupted by the referee who issued three red cards to Landen United players and one to D-Pils captain Evgeny Baranovsky, the player later assaulted. According to immigrant soccer sources, thuggish and xenophobic attacks on non-Irish players are nothing new.
Chairman of Soviet Union FC Max Unilij said his players were often called “f***ing foreigners” and told to “go home” by the lower-league Irish teams. According to him, immigrants also bare the brunt of rough play.
“This has to stop,” he said. “We have to make up our minds whether we’re playing football or we’re boxing.”
Maris Rasims from Latvia, who plays for D-Pils, said his team has “had enough” and will quit the league unless it takes serious action against the offending Irish side. He claimed teams from “rough” neighbourhoods of Dublin routinely insult immigrant players on the basis of their nationality, using language like “dirty immigrant c**t”.
Ovidiu Matiut, a Romanian who started playing in the Leinster Football League in 2002, said being called names like “f***ing refugees” was common during his time in the league.
Matiut, who is now managing a futsal team, said the abuse is more widespread in the lower rungs of the Irish amateur leagues, where players tend to be less serious about their game.
“Teams from rough areas were often giving us a rough time,” he remembers. “It wasn’t very pleasant to be on the pitch with them. It wasn’t football we were playing.”
However, Ahmet Kurt, manager of International FC – a Leinster Football League line-up composed mainly of players with Turkish backgrounds – said that his team had no “major incidents” with any of the Irish outfits. “Sometimes there is verbal abuse or small arguments, but nothing major,” he said.
When contacted by Metro Éireann last Friday the FAI’s intercultural co-ordinator Des Tomlinson had not been informed about the incident on 1 March. But he welcomed the fact that the attack on the Latvian player was reported to the league.
“I would encourage more people to report incidents. If people don’t report these problems we cannot deal with them and we cannot say how widespread these problems are.”
He said that all FAI affiliates were given guidelines on tackling racism. “They should be aware of their responsibilities,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, D-Pils have vowed to withdraw from their league if Landen United are not disqualified.
Asked why his team never reported abuse before, D-Pils player Maris Rasims said: “It’s such a common occurrence. You just have to continue playing. There’s no sense in answering back – it’ll only get worse. So we just closed our eyes on it up to a point.”
He also claimed the referees often ignore verbal insults made to members of his team.
The manager of the Landen United team, when contacted by Metro Éireann, issued no comment and redirected all enquiries to his solicitor. Asked for the solicitor’s contact number, the manager said: “Call 999.”
