Violence rising in Dutch amateur football this year

The number of violent incidents in amateur football is increasing in the larger cities, according to Dutch football association KNVB. The declining trend of the past years may very well be broken this season, spokesperson Hans van Kastel said to De Stentor. Last week there were three violent incidents. One w between clubs OSV and ZBC'97 from Zwijndrecht. The match had to be halted for 10 minutes because of a brawl. One player injured his back and had to be rushed to the hospital. The referee had to leave the premises under police escort. The KNVB will only have hard figures at the end of the season, but they are noticing an increase in the number of calls reporting incidents. "Especially in the larger cities, it seems that the downward trend of recent years stopped. There may even be an increase", Van Kastel said. This past years there has been much attention paid to aggression o the field. Especially now it his important that we make sure we're not lulled to sleep."