Well dang! A Youth soccer coach in Virginia is speaking out after he claims he was brutally attacked by a parent during scrimmage on Saturday!
Coach Vince Villanueva, claims the parent attacked him with a metal water bottle which caused him to receive a broken eye socket. Villanueva explained to Fox 5 D.C that when he attempted to make a substitution during the scrimmage that’s when all hell broke loose. “The father went over to talk to the son and then when I went to get him and put him back in the game, I said ‘Are you okay?’ And he said, ‘No he’s not,’ and he said, ‘Coach can I talk to you?'” Villanueva explained. “Then everything went downhill from there.”
Villanueva told the news outlet that the father started hitting him with a metal water bottle multiple times, leaving him with injuries on his face, including two swollen, black eyes and a fractured orbital. The man who commuted the attack reportedly fled the scene after the incident, but the Prince William County Police Department was able to track him down and take him into custody. The man has been identified as Bletand Hoxha, 45, and is being charged with malicious wounding and is being held without bond.
Towards the end of the conversation with Fox 5, the coach delivered a message to parents who tend to lose their cool on coaches during kid’s game. “Allow them to do their job and just, you know, just make a fun environment,” Villanueva said. “Kids have enough stress in life with everything else in the world. Allow them to have that moment, someplace to escape from it.”
It has been a lot of drama surrounding youth sports lately! As we previously shared, an Atlanta high school coach was caught on television punching one of his players in the stomach during a game on Saturday afternoon. In the viral footage a coach at Benjamin E. Mays High School can be seen hitting the player in the stomach and the young teen can be seen stumbling back holding his stomach. The incident reportedly occurred during the first quarter of the game and according to Atlanta News First, the coach was removed from the sidelines by an Atlanta Public Schools police officer and placed in custody and now facing a simple battery charge. A spokesperson also told the news outlet, that the person was a “lay coach,” which means they are a coach who does not teach at the school or hold a teaching certificate.