This story first came across my feed when I saw Logroñes Denver SC post a statement about an incident with a goalkeeper. Obviously, some of the things they said are very troubling. After a little bit of time, GAM United FC responded with their own allegations towards Logroñes. So, let’s look at everything that has happened.

The Incident

I had an interest in the outcome of this match. It decided who would be facing the Mountain Conference Champion for a spot in the UPSL Semifinals. I currently cover the Mountain Conference heavily and thus would be covering who they would play. Unfortunately, there was no stream for the match. I refreshed my social media feeds every twenty to thirty minutes looking for an update. Finally, at 6:53 PM ET Logroñes posted an update on their Facebook announcing they had won the Colorado Conference Championship with a picture of the trophy. I tweeted about this and went on my way. Less than an hour latter, Logroñes posted a second update about the incident in question, which stated the following:

“As a club who has a history of being against violence, we hope that the UPSL and any other leagues in this sport that we all love stand up and do the right thing which is to go against any violence specially against the officials. Unfortunately, in our Final Match today the Goalkeeper from GAM United displayed very unsportsmanlike behavior which started off by aggravating one of the ball boys which he received a Yellow Card for, he would then proceed to disrespect the spectators and the facility. Towards the end of the match a penalty was called in our favor the goalkeeper got a foul called against him by the linesman for stepping away from the line before the penalty was taken which calls for a do-over, but the goalkeeper came running towards the center referee and proceeded to assault her. He shoved her on the ground and when players stepped up to push him away he started to throw punches left and right, one of which landed on one of our players. This type of behavior should not be tolerated at any level and we as a club wish to have the league do something about this. To the referees that were sent to our match today we would like to congratulate you on a job very well done! We hope the center referee from today is doing well!”



These were all shocking allegations, but none of us had any video to see what had happened. I reached out to Logroñes to see if they had game tape and I was told they would receive the tape on Tuesday and I might be able to see it then. I wasn’t able to, however, as local authorities are still investigating what happened. I was disheartened and thought I would tell the story without being able to show what happened, until I received a message on Tuesday with a video. The clip was recorded from a spectator’s cell phone and can be seen here: