‘Players must be able to show emotions’
NOS Football–
A day after the tumultuous and unsportsmanlike cup final between Ajax and PSV, do not expect a critical call from top player union president Yevgeny Levchenko for normal behavior. The chairman also believes that the players went too far at times. “But footballers should be able to react from their emotions,” he said.
“Of course I think elbows, headbutts and pushing and pulling should be dealt with more harshly,” Levchenko said. “But it’s okay to challenge each other a little bit on the field. We should not completely KILL By removing all emotion.”
VVCS vice president after cup final: ‘Players booing each other is not a big problem’
Never before has a referee in a cup final needed so many yellow cards as Dennis Higler did yesterday (eleven). Especially in the first half, there was hardly any football and there were mostly riots and unfriendliness between the players on the pitch.
Levchenko watched the match with his infant son and saw how many players were certainly not setting an example for the youth. “I saw many things that were not nice for children. How the players treated each other in the first half, that has to be done in a different way.”
Audience
Levchenko believes it is not up to the union to interfere in how players behave on the field. “You can go quite far. Infractions, holding each other and sucking up a little, that should be allowed,” is his personal opinion.
“But you shouldn’t want to win at all costs. Sometimes you see a player fall and pretend he is badly injured and a few minutes later he runs as if nothing happened. If you play unsportsmanlike, you don’t deserve to win as far as I’m concerned.”
In Studio Soccer, the behavior of the players in the cup final was a major topic of discussion.
The cup final did not have to be stopped because of disorder among the supporters, as, for example, happened a week earlier in the league match between PSV and Ajax. Afterwards, however, frustrated fans did cause quite a bit of destruction in De Kuip. “The behavior of players should not give the public carte blanche to throw things at players,” Levchenko believes.
Rugby
The president of the players’ union, however, sees no reason in the display during the cup final to adjust the rules of the game. He is not in favor of a rule like in field hockey or rugby, for example, where only the captain is allowed to talk to the referee.
Ajax player Davy Klaassen spoke afterwards about the unsportsmanship in the cup final against PSV.
Klaassen does understand criticism of behavior in cup final: ‘A season like that doesn’t help’
“You have to be able to discuss things with a referee in your emotion. Although of course it’s not normal when players are constantly whining to the referee.”
“We believe soccer should remain as clean as possible. But it is still emotion. Some players go a bit further than just playing cleanly. But I think captains Luuk de Jong and Dusan Tadic just shook hands afterwards, then there’s nothing more to it.”
