{"id":10665,"date":"2023-12-12T12:14:29","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T12:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=10665"},"modified":"2023-12-12T12:14:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T12:14:29","slug":"fifa-chief-condemns-attack-on-turkish-referee-calls-for-strict-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2023\/12\/12\/fifa-chief-condemns-attack-on-turkish-referee-calls-for-strict-measures\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA Chief Condemns Attack on Turkish Referee, Calls for Strict Measures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FIFA President Gianni Infantino strongly denounced the assault on Turkish football referee Halil Umut Meler by Ankaragucu club president Faruk Koca, terming the incident &#8220;totally unacceptable.&#8221; The Turkish football federation responded by indefinitely suspending all leagues following the attack that occurred after Monday&#8217;s 1-1 draw between MKE Ankaragucu and Caykur Rizespor.<\/p>\n<p>Infantino expressed his dismay on social media, emphasizing, &#8220;There is absolutely no place for violence in football, on or off the field.&#8221; He stressed the importance of ensuring the safety of referees, players, fans, and staff for the enjoyment of the game and called on relevant authorities to strictly implement and respect security measures at all levels.<\/p>\n<p>Images from the incident depict Koca rushing onto the pitch with a group of men and physically assaulting referee Meler immediately after the final whistle. In response to the attack, a court has placed Koca and two others in pre-trial detention on charges of &#8220;injuring and threatening a public official.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FIFA President Gianni Infantino strongly denounced the assault on Turkish football referee Halil Umut Meler by Ankaragucu club president Faruk Koca, terming the incident &#8220;totally unacceptable.&#8221; The Turkish football federation responded by indefinitely suspending all leagues following the attack that occurred after Monday&#8217;s 1-1 draw between MKE Ankaragucu and Caykur Rizespor. Infantino expressed his dismay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":10666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[267],"class_list":["post-10665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-fifa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10674,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10665\/revisions\/10674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}