A 40 second incident involving the schools soccer team in the last biantionals held in Barranquilla, led to a one year sanction, that impedes the team to play the next year´s  binationals that are being held here at the school. The sanction was due to a fight that happened during the semifinals of the tournament against Cali. Not being able to play at next year’s binationals that are at TCS suck because according the Guardian “Home teams have the crowd behind them, roaring them on, filling them with confidence”.

Everything happened very fast so there are many versions of who are really involved and what really happened, so I asked someone that was there, that is Urbano Mesa that is the head coach of the TCS soccer team. According to Urbano,  “One of our players said something disrespectful to the referee and he was expelled , so now we had 5 players expelled from the game and the rules state that after 5 players are expelled the game is over. It seems that  after that some players insulted the referee, and the he passed a report that said that he  had ended the game because there were no guarantees, which is when the pitch is invaded, but that did not happen, the match ended by the expulsion of 5 players in our team.” There’s no doubt that some pushing did happened after the end of the match,  but if the people from our team say that the pitch wasn’t invaded by the players, then the directives should fight the athletics board by saying that maybe the referee wasn’t saying the truth, or maybe he didn’t see things clearly.  

All of the players say that the referee was not doing a good job and that the school´s team was being affected by it. “The ref was very unfair to us. He expelled three of our players, for committing fouls, and when the other team committed the same fouls, he didn’t do anything to them, so after that is when we got angry and everything happened,” said Simon Abisaad, a TCS Junior and member of the soccer team. I believe that the school should ask for a meeting with the referee and with the other schools directives, since everyone one in the schools soccer team  say the same thing, they say that the judge was unfair and that he was the main cause for the fight to start.

The soccer team should be allowed to play in next year binationals since the sanction applied by the tournament directives is unfair and maybe measure were taken very fast For more clarity on the matter, I asked Roger Arbabi, the high school principal, who was there at the moment of the fight about his reactions. “After that incident we feel that there is some work that we need to do on sportsmanship,and losing with honor. Soccer is a passionate sport so people can get very emotional, and we didn’t expect to lose that match, but we can’t react in that way.¨  I also think that the players involved in the fight should receive a fair sanction and that we need to learn more sportsmanship, but I also believe that a one year sanction is not the answer. I think that maybe the school should reprimand more the students on how to act when they lose, and that way next year things could be different.

“We are looking for the best options for the school, but I want to make we are transparent and make sure that all the sanctions are equal to what has actually happened,” Arbabi stated.  I feel like even though sanctions should be applied on the students involved on the fight, I think that a one tear sanction should not be applied, considering that next year binationals are being held here at the school, so instead should intensify their efforts teach sportsmanship to the students.