Brawl Ends Super 8 Finals

The Antigua & Barbuda Football Association’s (ABFA) disciplinary committee is left with the difficult task of deciding the fate of two clubs and their players after Sunday night’s Wadadli Beer Super 8 finals which ended in a “brawl” at the Antigua Recreation Ground (ARG).
Premier Division’s Pigotts Bullets FC led newly promoted Swetes FC 2-1 with some 13 minutes of regulation time left in the 90-minutes contest when the fight, involving players and spectators from both teams, erupted on the field.
Striker Alickson Montoute had struck twice, scoring in minutes 44 and 67 to give Bullets a 2-0 advantage going into the latter stages of the second half.
Juwan Roberts pulled Swetes within one with a 77th minute conversion when the incident allegedly occurred.
Reports are that one Swetes player wrestled the ball away from the Bullets custodian who had picked the ball up from the back of Continued on page 18
Brawl from page 24
the net. On his way up field, an opposing player reportedly challenged the Swetes player for the ball.
The Bullets player was then shoved to the ground, which resulted in other players getting involved and fans invading the field.
General Secretary of the ABFA Gordon Derrick said the matter must be dealt with through the natural channel.
“We’ll wait for the match report from the referee and that will go to the disciplinary committee and they will take all the necessary things into account and rule on it. We expect to have a decision before the end of the week because it’s only one game and it’s an urgent matter so they will meet and deliberate and make a ruling,” he said.
“The game was filmed so from the match report they might ask for a copy of the tape [recording] and they will go through their deliberations as they have been doing throughout the season,” he added.
Further reports also indicate that a number of fans invaded the dressing rooms, threatening the safety of players and match officials alike.
The incident left most questioning the level of security provided for the competition’s finals.
Derrick assured that adequate security was present at ARG and that it was, in fact, the very same security forces, which assisted in bringing the situation under control.
“We always have police at the games. There were plain-clothes police at the game and they were the ones who ended up doing a lot of the things for us. They even got in contact with the rapid response [unit] who actually came through to make sure everything was brought to an end,” the GS said.
“The brawl happened but it wasn’t overly extended. I don’t believe, we needed more [security] to bring it to some sort of normalcy and nobody was injured in any major way,” he added.
The Pigotts Sports Club issued a public apology following the incident in which they condemned both the incident and the invasion of the pitch by fans.
Meanwhile in the third place contest, SAP defeated Five Islands 2-1 with goals from former national striker Peter Byers and Novell Francis.
The winners of the competition will walk away with $13,000 while runner-up SAP will get $6,500. Third place will receive $4,000 and fourth place $3,000.