It was the 90th minute of the duel between Racing Santander and Elche for the second category of football in Spain when a situation caught the attention of a local player. Iñigo Sainz-Mazamidfielder for the local team, He asked if the game could be stopped because there was someone in the stands who was suffering a possible cardiac episode and what he received was his expulsion from the game..
The Racing footballer was on the substitute bench after having been replaced in the second half when he noticed that the Racing de Santander doctor José Fernández Dívar went to the stands to care for the 58-year-old fan who had suffered a couple of cardiac arrests.
While the doctor helped the fanatic Racinguistaswho was finally transferred to a local hospital where he was out of danger, Sainz-Maza approached the La Liga match director (Juan Cantero) to consult him about the protocol to follow, since his team had been left without their doctor. Faced with this scenario, and despite the fact that the conversation was in a cordial tone, Jon Ander González approached the line of play and showed the red card to number 6 of the premises.
According to the Spanish media Relief, that was what the match referee wrote in his report to the authorities of the Royal Spanish Football Federation. “In the 90th minute; the player (6) Iñigo Sainz-Maza Serna; He was sent off for the following reason: For getting up from the bench and leaving the technical area insistently demanding that the fourth referee stop the game due to a medical incident in the stands, when the game was stopped he continued standing outside the technical area without being able to hear what he said.”
Furthermore, they indicated that in the report of the La Liga delegates on security that they have to write, The match director Cantero acknowledged that the Racing player approached him to consult the protocols to follow in this type of incident.. What’s more, the competition’s own character went to the referees’ locker room to inform them about the situation that ended in Sainz-Maza’s expulsion.
After the match, the Santander team coach spoke about what happened. “Íñigo was worried about what was happening in the stands, we did not understand why the referee did not stop the game in the event of an extremely serious incident. Nobody has disrespected anyone, what has been experienced has been absurd. The first thing is a person’s life, not football“, explained the Jose Alberto Mendez.
It is estimated that the club, which beat Elche 3-1 on matchday 38 of the second division in Spain and is in sixth position in the tournament with 58 points, the same as its rival this Saturday, will resort to expulsion of the player to request that it be annulled using the match director’s report from La Liga and the images of the TV broadcast.
According to the video, you can see that it is the coach of the Santander team who is talking to the fourth referee and not the player who saw the red. Likewise, it is clear that it was a calm dialogue and without major protests involved with the intention of finding out about the steps to follow in a case like the one that occurred with a fan being treated for a health problem in the stands.
