“There is no violence in rugby. There is aggression during the game to use force. The match ends and there is a third time, those who exercised the aggression, meet, eat and drink, share among all. It hurts me and we feel attacked, because it is a sport that gives discipline, education, get kids off the streets to be better people”, Gustavo Borgognon referred in an interview with the GEN channel.
The interviewee acknowledged that he always there are people who do not agree with the values or rules of the game, but made it clear that a lot of discipline is taught during training, and that this makes athletic boys improve their performance at school and at home. “If you realize that there is a violent boy, who reacts badly or yells at his teammates, in all the clubs we have psychologists who work with them. The goal is to make good people,” he added.
Related note: Assault on Zapag: perpetrators of the beating are exposed to 10 years in prison
On Marcelo Giovanni Fretes Laterra and Héctor Grau, who are part of the U20 squad of the Paraguayan Rugby Team, and who would have starred in the beating of Raúl Zapag’s sonsaid that they are not guilty yet, but rather suspects, so they are suspended while the investigation lasts and that it will be a disciplinary court which will apply the sanction in the case of being found guilty by ordinary justice. There is no history of athletes who have been removed for an assaultas he acknowledged.
“In Argentina, where there are 120,000 rugby players, how are we going to link or say that the sport is aggressive because two or three had misconduct,” he finally said when reminded of the case of the fatal aggression of a group of players against a young Argentine son of Paraguayan compatriots.
The long list of acts of violence carried out by rugbiers
Justly, the Infobae medium had published in 2020 a recount of the cases of attacks by rugby players, this after the beating murder of Fernando Báez Sosa, an 18-year-old boy, at the exit of a bowling alley in Villa Gesell.
A group of 11 young people between the ages of 18 and 21 beat and kicked Fernando Báez Sosa on the ground until he was unconscious. A few minutes later, while waiting for the ambulance, he died in the street, in the place where he had fallen due to the violent attack of which he had been a victim.
The news of the murder caused a stir. Nevertheless, This is not the first event of these characteristics that has been recorded in recent times.
Less than two weeks ago, before that case, a video of a boy giving her a betrayal punch in the face another young man at an outdoor party.
The victim, identified as Alejo Iturrieta, had to be rushed to Buenos Aires and operated on for a broken jaw. While The aggressor, who played rugby in a Uruguayan club, suffered a strong rejection on social networks, but was not arrested.
In August of last year, Five rugbiers from a Rosario club were ordered to pay $610,000 three young men who were beaten up at a dance club two years ago. In addition, they had to agree to teach that sport in Santa Fe prisons for two years.
The event had occurred during the early hours of November 5, 2017 at the “Wallas” bowling alley, located on the central waterfront of Rosario. There the fight broke out for which a group of rugbiers from the Gymnastics and Fencing Club were accused of various acts of intentional injuries. Among the victims of the beating were the local “pathovicas”, who suffered injuries and one had to undergo surgery.
In October of that same year, social networks were also convulsed with the images of several juveniles from the San Isidro Club, who knocked down and abused an older man in a state of drunkenness and vulnerability.
Initially, it was denounced that the victim of the attack was a stripper who was in the place. However, it later emerged that he was a man who was part of the 1979 litter in the first rugby team.
As can be seen in the video, one of the youths attacked him from behind and knocked him down. A few seconds later, a colleague of the assailant also charged the older man and threw him to the ground again.
Two years ago, in Monte Hermoso, Emanuel Eduardo Orta Díaz, 17, finished hospitalized and underwent surgery for a blood clot in the head after the attack of a group of rugby players in a street fight in the heart of the city.
The episode was known as a result of the viralization of the video of a security camera of the seaside resort that recorded the moment. It all started inside a bowling alley, where one of the victim’s friends unintentionally hit a girl.
By this situation, the rugbiers rebuked the victim and, while he was trying to calm them down, he was punched in the head from behind that made him collapse to the floor.
In 2016 four rugbiers from the Los Cedros club attacked a policeman in Rio de Janeiro, after an argument in a nightclub.
Commissioner Gustavo Ribeiro ended up with a fracture in the maxilla and a broken tooth and denounced the Argentines for “serious bodily injury” and “disrespect”
The most shocking case for its lethal consequences -and for its similarity to the one that just happened in Villa Gessell- it was the murder of Ariel Malvinowho died in Brazil in 2006 as a result of a beating by three Argentine rugbiers, natives of the city of Corrientes, on vacation in the place. A gang of “good children”, as defined by the victim’s father, who is still, 13 years after the event, awaiting trial for his son’s murderers.
They attacked Malvino when he wanted to intercede to stop a fight. Not content with hitting and knocking him down, one of them picked up a rock and threw it at the victim at waist height. Malvino was left convulsing on the floor and later died from the blow.
gender violence
The case of the young woman who discovered that a group of rugbiers shared intimate photos of themselves and other girls without consent is framed within gender violence and also deserves to be repudiated.
On this occasion, the victim exposed the young people on social networks and managed to get the club to suspend them for their actions. “The one who took the photo of me an hour ago was laughing at the sticker, I’ve been crying for 2 days,” she posted on Twitter.
