Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 6:58 PM• Dominic Mostert

A match in the eighth division between teams of VV Katwijk and RCL got out of hand in Leiderdorp on Saturday. The on-duty referee wanted to keep arguing players apart, but according to Broadcasting West himself beaten in the face and stomach by at least one Katwijk player. He suffered a concussion and a thick lip and was very affected by the incident, the regional broadcaster reports. The incident has been reported to the KNVB.

At the time of the fight, Katwijk was leading 0-1. After the referee awarded a penalty to RCL, the flames went up. The RCL player who was on the ground and who received the penalty kick was grabbed by a player from Katwijk. Katwijk’s player tried to hit him, after which the referee intervened and was hit himself. The match was subsequently discontinued and reported to the KNVB as a ‘serious crime’. The referee was upset. “He was shaking completely,” says a player from RCL. Afterwards, he told RCL players that he no longer wanted to whistle.

Referee gets hit at amateur competition: ‘It’s too crazy for words’ https://t.co/ZXG42dqkpI

— Omroep West (@omroepwest) October 10, 2021

RCL chairman Dick van der Bijl would be very sorry if the volunteer, who whistles three matches on his ‘free Saturday’, would stop. “Unfortunately, as a referee you have to be prepared for insults these days, but getting hit is really over the border,” says Van der Bijl. “This behavior is really not possible. It is crazy for words that this is happening at this level.” Afterwards, the chairman spoke to the referee in the business lounge of the canteen and will also contact his colleague chairman from Katwijk. The referee has the names of the Katwijk players who were violent. Van der Bijl hopes that they will get ‘their punishment’.

Mart Vergouwen, the chairman of Katwijk, says he regrets the incident. “It is unacceptable if a referee is beaten. Who and what, we will find out”, he indicates. “We will take appropriate measures once we have clear what exactly happened.” One of the Katwijk players says he finds the incident ‘intense’ for the referee and announces that the team will try to send him a flower. He said it was not his intention to hit the arbiter. “It was a group of about ten against ten and the referee tried to take things apart. In that chaos there was so much pushing, pulling and hitting. I think he got hit by accident.”