Edison Paredes, with number 11 and brother of Andrés Felipe (in the circle), asks the referee for explanations after the expulsion. /
The Las Encartaciones club asks the Competition Committee to take into account the context when judging Andrés Felipe Paredes’ red
On Tuesday, Zalla presented allegations to the Competition Committee of the Biscayan Federation to request that their player Andrés Felipe Paredes Escolar not be sanctioned with match suspension for having been expelled on Saturday in the Regional Preferred match during his visit to Soloarte at Basconia B for going up to the field’s grandstand to confront a spectator who had hurled racist insults at him.
“He looked me straight in the eye, called me a monkey and began to make gestures while making uh, uh, uh,” the attacked young man, 28, who arrived in the Basque Country from his native Colombia 18 years ago, told EL CORREO. The player took advantage of the fact that next to the bench there are some stairs that go up to the stands to address the person who insulted him. “I asked him why he did it, why he didn’t respect me,” he said.
That cost him the red when he returned to the field. The referee indicated in the minutes that he expelled him for “facing a person from the public having to be restrained”, as this newspaper has learned.
El Zalla presented seven pages of allegations before the Federation. The defense clings to two arguments. On the one hand, he asks to take into account the context when judging the case, and that of Soloarte was that of a person who received racist insults and confronted the aggressor without insulting you or being violent with him, maintains the Las Encartaciones club. At this point, he even attached to the documentation delivered the complaint filed by Paredes before the Ertzaintza for a hate crime against the person who allegedly insulted him, who, as this newspaper has indicated, is identified.
As a second reasoning, Zalla’s lawyer, Iker Marcos, has warned the federal court that a sanction against Paredes would mean a double punishment. As bad as he was for having been insulted, he would also join a game without playing because of the sanction.
The player declared by videoconference before the federal court and maintained the version offered to this newspaper, that the only thing he did was go up to the stands to ask whoever insulted him why he was doing it.
