Matthéo, 9-years-old was beaten up after the final of a tournament by five players from the AS Creil club

 

Violence in football has unfortunately been commonplace among adults for many years. Now it has reached the world of childhood. Matthéo, a 9-year-old footballer, was the victim of an assault on Friday during a tournament organized in Vendin-le-Vieil, a town in Pas-de-Calais, near Lens.

 

AS Auchy-les-Mines lamented on Friday that after the final of a U10-U11 tournament in Pas-de-Calais, five children from the opposing team, AFC Creil, "violently attacked" one of its players, Matthéo, describing a "trip," a "take-down," and "kicks to the head and body."

 

The young AS Auchy-les-Mines player had to be evacuated on a stretcher and hospitalized to undergo medical examinations. In a short video released on Saturday by his club, the child, who appeared recovered, smiled and thanked everyone who sent him messages of support.

 

His club intends to take the matter to the Hauts-de-France Football League to "sanction those responsible," the club's president Julien Borie told AFP on Sunday

 

Young Matthéo, a player for AS Auchy-les-Mines, was beaten up after the tournament final by five children registered with AS Creil (Oise), who had won the match. They knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the body and face for about thirty seconds before their coach intervened to put an end to the scene. 

The case, shared on social media, triggered numerous hateful and insulting comments. Several political figures from the nationalist camp also reacted to this assault. For example, the leader of the National Rally in the National Assembly denounced on X the "ultra-violence (which) is now affecting competitions reserved for children." For the Pas-de-Calais MP, this beating is the "result of decades spent 'listening' and 'analyzing' – in reality, accepting – the behavior of increasingly younger minors who are ruining the lives of the French people." 

 

Marine Le Pen: "Ultra-violence is now reaching competitions reserved for children. Matthéo, 9 years old, a young player from the Auchy-les-Mines club, was beaten up by 5 opponents from the Creil club. At the height of abjection, the aggressors' supervisor refused to give their names. Complicity or worse, fear of being himself a victim of even more serious reprisals?

 

This is the result of decades spent 'listening' and 'analyzing'—in reality, accepting—the behaviors of younger and younger minors who are ruining the lives of the French people. In one year, we will put a stop to this ideology of weakness and laxity which leads every day to increasingly serious assaults, based on the certainty of impunity."