The ugly side of the beautiful game of football rose its head on Saturday when T&T international Jomal Williams of Luis Angel Firpo was racially abused by fans of his former club Isidro Metapan during an El Salvador Apertura Primera Division match at Estadio Jorge Calero Suarez, Metapan.
While the defeat dented Williams and Firpo’s push for the top spot as they remained fourth with 29 points from 19 matches, one ahead of Once Deportivo on the 12 team table, 13 points behind leaders Alianza, the match will be remembered more for the insults directed the way of the T&T international.
After the match Williams writing on his own Twitter handle soy_jomalwilliams10 expressed his disgust with the behaviour of the spectators saying: After 3 years of blood sweat and tears in the colors of @adimetapansv tonight hearing all the racist comments from the fans really broke my heart but this is life I’ll move on from here and I’ll always wish them good luck.
The actions of the home fans also caught the attention of Central American Sports presenter Jerry Quijada who wrote on his Twitter handle @ JerryQuidadaTV: Outrageous that "people" yelled "Ape" at Jomal Williams at the Metapan Firpo game, (at his former home). Shameful that these signs of racism still take place in our stadiums, where beyond "breaking hearts" it is a sign of an immature and intolerant society.
After a scoreless first 45 minutes in which five yellow cards were shown the 27-year-old Williams who played for Isidro Metapan during the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons and scored 18 goals in 59 matches, opened the scoring for the visitors in the 65th minute.
The strike by Williams was his 13th goal of the season, to join Duvier Riascos of Alianza as the league's top scorer.
However, Williams, formerly of local club W Connection was also yellow-carded for his exuberant celebrations afterward and eight minutes later, he was issued a second yellow card to leave his team to play out the rest of the match with ten players.
And with five minutes left in the match, Metapan made their man advantage count when Nestor Renderos fired in the equaliser, and two minutes later Denilson Castillo got the go-ahead item to send the home crowd into a frenzy.
There was still time for more twists in the heated encounter with two more red card expulsions, first, Firpo’s Luis Canales, in the 91st minute, quickly followed by Metapan’s Diego Gregori, some seconds later.