A friendly football tournament organized in the Kparblee District to bring the youth together, on Sunday, August 21, 2016 turned bloody, after a fight broke out between the two finalists; Old and New Yourpea, during the second phase of the match, after darkness brought the first phase to an end.
The chief organizer and youth leader Jonathan Tarlu told a local non-governmental organization, Mitigating Local Dispute in Liberia that the game between the two teams began on Saturday, August 20 and because it was getting dark the referee decided to reschedule the game on August for 40 minutes, that were left for the end of the first game.
Before the postponement New Yourpea Team was leading 2-0. He said when the two teams came for the game on August, it was discovered that Old Yourpea Team had a completely new team but the New Yourpeah Team did not raise any objection.
He added that while the game was going on Old Yourpea Team complained to the organizers that the New Yourpea Team is not going on the offensive and continued to defend their two goals they earlier scored in the first phase.
“When they brought their protest to me as an organizer, I told them, it was the referee who was in charge,” he said. “After I told them this, they got agitated and began beating on me and subsequently went on the rampage by disrupting the game and vandalizing everything.”
Several persons were alleged to have been wounded and eleven persons were arrested by police. New and Old Yourpea are located in Kparblee District, Eastern Nimba County.
There are reports that Old Yourpea teams are always involved in unsportsmanlike behavior whenever game results don’t go their way.
“We are disappointed in the way our children can behave, while should they fought one another in a simple game,” said an elderly man.