December 5 – Argentine football has been stunned by another shocking fatal tragedy after a player was brutally attacked. Franco Nieto (pictured), captain of regional club Tiro Federal was struck on the head following a third-tier match against rivals Chacarita Juniors in the town of Aimogasta, in north-west Argentina.
Nieto, 33, had been involved in an on-field brawl that resulted in the game being stopped 15 minutes from time after the referee sent off eight players for fighting.
According to police, afterwards three people surrounded Nieto’s car as he was leaving with his wife and one-month-old daughter and kicked and punched him before striking him on the head with a stone, leaving him unconscious. One of them was reported to be a player from the opposition team. He died four days later.
“It’s horrible,” said Roque Jaime, a police official in Aimogasta. “They beat him, kicked him and, after that, hit him in the head with a rock, which was fatal.”
No fewer than 15 people have died through football-related violence in Argentina this year, three times as many as during the same period in 2013 according to agency reports. The main culprits are the so-called Barras Bravas, gangs of radical supporters who patrol the terraces and the streets around the stadiums.
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