During the morning rounds of sports resources, I came across this article at smh.com.au. Australia is currently hosting the Women’s Asian Cup tournament, and last night’s match between North Korea and China produced some of the most disgusting scenes by players in recent memory. After the conclusion of the match, North Korean players attacked the Italian referee with the North Korean goalkeeper running up from behind the referee to push and kick her.

What led to this action? During extra time, the North Koreans had a goal disallowed because of an offside call (those pesky rules!). Once full-time was called, the Chinese started celebrating the victory that put them through to the final (who wouldn’t celebrate this?). Once the Chinese started celebrating, all hell broke loose (see video here - notice the North Korea official slap the goalie).

The North Korean goalie should be banned for life

It is one thing for players to go after each other, but when players go after officials because they don’t like a call - that’s when it REALLY crosses the line. Any player that attempts to, or does, physically assault an official should automatically be banned from the sport for life. What transpired after the conclusion of the game was shocking, but unfortunately because this was a woman’s game, it will get nowhere near the coverage that the Zidane headbutt did - even though the actions carried out by the North Korean players were far more disgraceful.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006 at 8:51 am and is filed under Soccer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.