VIDEO: Brazilian Lower League Referee Brandishes Gun Mid-Game

It is no surprise that a referee’s job is a hard job. Everyone on the pitch is out to criticize your work, whether be it the players, the fans, the managers, etc. as a referee you know if you make a call someone is going to disagree with it.

That is what makes a referee’s job so dangerous as well, especially if you live in Brazil, where the passion for football goes a bit over the ordinary. There have been incidents involving referees where they get attacked forcing them to defend themselves, and unfortunately sometimes these referees end up killed.

With that constant threat of violence always looming over a Brazilian official’s head during, and even after, matches; it led amateur-side referee Gabriel Murta to lose his cool and to brandish a gun on the pitch during a game.

This all occurred during a regional league match in Brumadinho near Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minais Gerais. Reports say that Murta was kicked and slapped after Amantes da Bola players and the manager invaded the pitch to demand a red card for a Brumadinho player.

It was then that Murta, fed up with the abuse, went into the locker rooms and returned to the pitch in a hurry, but he didn’t come back empty handed as he came out waving a gun around, presumably demanding order. A linesman had to calm down Murta, who is a policeman by trade, holding him back as he continued to argue with the players and manger from Amantes da Bola.

As you can see in the video below it had to take a linesman and a goalie from one of the teams to drag him away from the other members of Amantes da Bola.

Truly a sad spectacle and according to reports from Brazilian media, Murta is undergoing psychiatric evaluation and will face disciplinary action (a fine or a possible permanent ban have been rumored to be his fate) from the Minas Gerais Football Association. Surprisingly, after all this mess no one was arrested.

About Josh Espinal

I am a multimedia journalism graduate from the University of Texas at El Paso. Soccer is more than a passion for me, it's basically life. Follow me on twitter at @joshbruv and see me tweet about soccer in almost every language imaginable.

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