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Red card material
Utah soccer ref dies after player's punch
May 5, 2013
By Associated Press
MURRAY, Utah -- A Utah soccer referee who slipped into a coma after being punched by a teenage player during a game a week ago died Saturday night, police said.
Ricardo Portillo, 46, of Salt Lake City passed away at the hospital, where he was being treated following an assault, Unified police spokesman Justin Hoyal said.
Police have accused a 17-year-old player in a recreational soccer league of punching Portillo after the man called a foul on him and issued him a yellow card.
"The suspect was close to Portillo and punched him once in the face as a result of the call," Hoyal said in a press release.
The teen has been booked into juvenile detention on su ion of aggravated assault.
Hoyal said authorities will consider additional charges since Portillo has died.
He said an autopsy is planned. No cause of death was released.
Portillo suffered swelling in his brain and had been listed in critical condition, Dr. Shawn Smith said Thursday at the Intermountain Medical Center in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray.
The victim's family, which publicly spoke of Portillo's plight this past week, has asked for privacy, Hoyal said.
Johana Portillo, 26, said last week that she wasn't at the April 27 game in the Salt Lake City suburb of Taylorsville, but she said she's been told by witnesses and detectives that the player hit her father in the side of the head.
"When he was writing down his notes, he just came out of nowhere and punched him," she said.
Accounts from a police report, Portillo's daughter and others further detail what occurred.
The teenager was playing goalie during a game at Eisenhower Junior High School in Taylorsville when Ricardo Portillo issued him a yellow card for pushing an opposing forward trying to score a goal. In soccer, a yellow card is given as a warning to a player for an egregious violation of the rules. Two yellow cards lead to a red card and expulsion from the game.
The teenager, quite a bit heavier than Portillo, began arguing with the referee, then unleashed a punch to his face. Portillo seemed fine at first, then asked to be held because he felt dizzy. He sat down and started vomiting blood, triggering his friend to call an ambulance.
When police arrived around noon, the teenager was gone and Portillo was laying on the ground in the fetal position. Through translators, Portillo told EMTs that his face and back hurt and he felt nauseous. He had no visible injuries and remained conscious. He was considered to be in fair condition when they took him to the Intermountain Medical Center.
But when Portillo arrived to the hospital, he slipped into a coma with swelling in his brain. Johana Portillo called detectives to let them know his condition had worsened.
That's when detectives intensified their search for the goalie. By Saturday evening, the teenager's father agreed to bring him down to speak with police.
Portillo's family said he had been attacked before, and Johanna Portillo said she and her sisters begged their father to stop refereeing because of the risk from angry players, but he continued because he loved soccer.
"It was his passion," she said. "We could not tell him no."
Red card material
Considering additional charges? I hope like murder.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Lock his ass up.
Well that stupid Kid just wrecked his life.. Have a nice Prison term..
That's what soccer playing gots get. I can understand it in the third world where people can't afford basketball hoops and don't have enough food to grow taller than 5'4", but there's no excuse for playing that garbage here.
BB, doing the Lord's work.
Wow, it wasn't even a ing red card?..sad, tbh..
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I want to take the bait
^ then how do you explain DPG's 5'2 height?
Notice how all the players around him are a foot shorter
lol
So why is Andres biedrens doing the robot? Is he happy that he doesn't have to go for sloppy seconds or terrible thirds with that groupie?
Bring that soccer player to us in the NBA forum, we'd skull him to death.
And they say soccer is soft.
BOOM... one shot kid... one shot.
guy never expected his punch to cause so much damage to the poor ref imho. it was apparent the ref didn't have much brain in his head to fill his skull, otherwise his brain wouldn't have been shaken outta shape so easily tbh. dude died at 46 and had a 26yr old daughter which says enough of his stupidity, let alone the fact that soccer is a game for gots & re s to begin with
Smh soccer
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