Two youth football teams of children 14 years old and younger have been expelled from the league after parents started brawling in the stands, Chula Vista Police said.
On Sept. 26, parents in the stands at Otay Ranch High School in Chino began yelling and cursing back and forth, as seen on a YouTube video of the incident.
"They’re going to leave youth football and this is all they will remember – a fight they had nothing to do with, they couldn’t control, but they’re punished," Keefe Pierson, coach of the Inland Empire Ducks, said at a protest the coach organized asking the league to overturn the decision.
The Inland Empire Ducks, a nationally ranked team, led the Otay Ranch Broncos.
The yelling became so hostile that an announcer stopped the game.
A group of fans rooting for the Otay Ranch Broncos was sitting with a group of fans rooting for the IE Ducks.
The announcer requested they move, and when they did, the game resumed.
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It wasn’t long before the group returned however, and issues began again.
Bystanders started calling 911 reporting a massive fight in the stands spilling onto the football field, Chula Vista police said.
Reports also came in of parents bleeding from injuries, and at one point, a coach said as many as 30 were fighting.
Police also said parents tried to stop other parents involved in the fight from leaving the parking lot when the brawl died down.
In the end, no report was taken and no one was arrested because police said no one was seriously hurt, police said.
But the reverberations have been felt through the communities as both teams were expelled from the league.
Pierson, coach of the Inland Empire Ducks, said he is furious that a small group of fans ruined so much of the kids’ hard work.
