A football star ignited a mass brawl by planting his team’s flag in the center of his bitter rivals’ field after defeating them in an intense derby match.
Belgian team Club Brugge triumphed over their disliked neighbors Cercle Brugge with a score of 3-1 at the Jan Breydel Stadium on Sunday.
However, Brugge player Ardon Jashari, 22, aimed to further humiliate their rivals after the defeat.
The Swiss midfielder was spotted running onto the field with a blue and black flag – the colors of Club Brugge – which he then tried to plant in the center circle of the pitch.
However, already facing the shame of losing at home to their rivals, Cercle players were not going to let him get away with it.
Players and coaches rushed towards Jashari as he planted the flag, and goalkeeper Maxime Delanghe kicked it away before carrying it off.
Incensed Cercle players confronted the 22-year-old, and rival players from both teams joined in a shoving match, accompanied by loud whistles from the crowd.
This moment echoed Graeme Souness’s own flag-planting incident when he, as manager, placed a Galatasaray flag in the middle of the pitch after a 3-0 victory over Fenerbahce in the Turkish Cup in 1996.
That incident almost caused a riot as tensions escalated between the Istanbul rivals.
The situation in Belgium on Sunday was less intense than the previous incident, although Jashari will almost certainly become public enemy number one for Cercle Brugge fans.
Cercle Brugge and Club Brugge share the 29,000-capacity stadium in Bruges.
It is a similar arrangement to how Inter Milan and AC Milan share the San Siro, which has been the case since 1947.
The game occurred after “away” team Club Brugge suffered a 3-1 loss to Aston Villa in the Champions League last-16 earlier in the week.
The city-owned stadium was constructed in 1975 and hosted four matches during the 2000 European Championships – three group stage games and a quarter-final between Spain and eventual winners France.
