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AZ Alkmaar have won the replayed Dutch Cup tie at Ajax’s Amsterdam ArenA in the Netherlands.
The match was originally played on December 21st but abandoned after an Ajax fan invaded the ptich and attacked Alkmaar keeper Esteban Alvarado.
Alvarado had kicked his assailant before Alkmaar’s Finnish captain Niklas Moisander restrained him. Bizarrely he then received a red card from referee Bas Nijhuis for doing so.
Alkmaar’s players walked off and the match was abandoned with 53 minutes left to play.
A crowd of 22,800 gathered for a replay with Pol Van Boekel in charge.
The KNVB, the Dutch Football Association, had ordered that the game be replayed behind closed doors but eventually, following a precedent in Turkey, modified the condition.
Last September, the Fenerbahce club of Istanbul were ordered by the Turkish Football Federation to play a match behind closed doors. They negotiated a a compromise by arguing that as hooligans were mostly men, they could be allowed to admit women and children into the match so as not to punish the innocent.
In a scene reminiscent of the Stoning sketch in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 41,000 women and offspring attended a 1-1 draw against Manisaspor.
In Amsterdam, over 20,000 Ajax supporting children took advantage of the free tickets given out to schools. Women were barred from attending under Dutch sex discrimination legislation which insists on comparable treatment for men and women.
Swiss striker Siem de Jong scored twice for Ajax in the 10th and then the 37th minute.
Around that though, Charlison Benschop, and Maarten Martens scored for the visitors before Sweden’s Rasmus Elm netted the winner from the penalty spot.
3 Comments
I still like how the Dutch FA came out and publicly said the Referee was correct for giving the Red Card…but they’re still taking it away because well they feel like it. I’m surprised FIFA didn’t step in and I wish they would to make more clear what refs are supposed to do if a player assaults a fan. Right now this is the correct call, couldn’t tell anyone in the world that though.
Part of me thinks that Mr Nuijhuis knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to abandon the match because he didn’t feel he had a safe environment for him, his linesmen or the players. By carding Esteban, he could both apply the letter of the law, AND end the game but by making it Alkmaar’s call to do so.
He has to have known Alkmaar would walk if he dismissed the keeper. No team would continue under those circumstances. He may well have played a blinder, applied the law literally, and ensured an outcome which the circumstances actually merited.
Which means Yogi, he actually conformed to the primary rule of reffing – Use Common Sense.
Ironically, that is the one thing he was accused of not doing. Maybe he actually did but in a more nuanced way.
Maybe you’re right. However I’ve done this before and the team didn’t walk. It happens in Sunday leagues a lot. There’s other cases too where a team accepts this has happened and they just get on with the game. Now if they legitimately felt threatened that’s a different story altogether.
Now that I think about it though the referee in this case had terrible management skills when he gave the red card and dealt with the entire situation. I don’t think I want to give him credit for his alleged “common sense” cause really he gave that red card like a puffed up grade 6 would. Not up to International Refereeing standards.