In Germany, consternation and incomprehension after the death of a 15-year-old teenager during a brawl after a football match

2023-06-01 10:19:38

On Sunday, a player from FC Metz international football academy struck an opponent with incredible violence during a tournament. After the announcement of the young man’s death on Wednesday May 31, the clubs concerned and the German authorities are in shock.

After the semi-final of the international “Germany Cup” tournament in Frankfurt am Main on Whit Sunday, a fight broke out between the teams of the French club FC Metz international football academy and those of JFC Berlin, who had won the part.

According to the testimonies collected by the prosecution, they would have engaged in a real “pitched battle”. The offending player (whose identity is still unknown) would have first struck a player from the opposing team in the face. He then allegedly punched another player (the victim) in the throat with both fists. He then allegedly took him in a rear chokehold to hit him in the stomach area. The German would then have managed to break free before being attacked from behind, by surprise, receiving a sharp blow to the head. When he collapsed on the ground, the Metz player walked away without helping him.

Custody

According to testimonies collected by the major Frankfurt daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the emergency services tried to resuscitate the player on the field of play. But the doctors could only note his brain death during his transfer to the hospital. He was kept alive until Wednesday to carry out organ removals, the young man having declared himself a donor.

An autopsy should make it possible to clarify in the coming days the circumstances of the death of the teenager. The police have launched an appeal to obtain the videos allegedly taken and which could help to reconstruct the facts. Not having a domicile in Germany, the German justice considered that there was a risk of flight on the part of the player from Metz. On Wednesday evening, he was still in pre-trial detention for “assaults resulting in death”.

On the side of FC Metz, there is consternation. The club said they were stunned by this “incomprehensible scuffle”. But, according to the press release, the player “denies having willfully harmed the physical integrity [du jeune décédé]». The FC Metz international football academy, where the youngster played, is a private training center accessible to young footballers from countries without a training club. It is also accessible to young French people who have not succeeded in entering professional centres. FC Metz did not want to specify the age and nationality of the offending player.

“Social problem”

The German Football Association also said “dismayed” by the death of the young man. Vice-president Ronny Zimmermann recalled that preventing violence was no longer enough in football. “We also have to deal with a social problem”he recalled.

“To have a young player lose his life after a football match leaves me speechless. I wish the family, friends and team much courage in these dark times,” reacted the German Interior Minister in Berlin, the Social Democrat Iris Spranger (SPD).

The “Germany Cup” tournament in which these two young people participated had welcomed sixteen teams from different countries, most of them European, to Germany in recent months. The victim’s club was precisely founded in 2010 with the idea of ​​educating young people in non-violence and respect for the adversary.