More than he could chew - JC’s Lopez says KC’s Richards went too far with bite in quest to get him sent off
Published:Monday | November 25, 2019 | 12:23 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
Shadane Lopez, the Jamaica College (JC) player who was bitten by Kingston College’s (KC) Khalifah Richards in Wednesday’s ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup semi-final at the National Stadium, said his counterpart should have been smarter than to commit such an offence during a live televised game.
Richards replaced Luis Watson at the start of the second half and was marking Lopez on a set piece inside his area. The KC defender then bit into the JC attacker’s shoulder. Lopez reacted by swinging an arm at the face of Richards, who fell to the ground.
Lopez, who said the incident has turned him into an overnight celebrity online, believes it was Richards’ intention to get him sent off. However, he explained that he only reacted the way he did because he was startled.
“He was under a lot of pressure because we had the ball right through and we were attacking on his side and getting in crosses, so he was trying to get out one of us,” Lopez told The Gleaner. “He was trying to get me a red card so they could have a one-man advantage.
“When that happened, I was so frightened, because I didn’t expect him to bite me. I was expecting everything but a bite. I could feel his teeth from behind, so I knew it was a bite and that’s why I swung. It was a hard bite, so I could show the referee the mark and my teammates. Even after the game, everyone could see the mark. I never wanted to hurt him, but in the moment I was frightened.”
QUICK TO PLEAD
But Lopez said that out of fear of being sent off for the slap, he was quick to plead his case to the referee that he was bitten.
“But before the referee reached, I walked to him and showed the bite before he gave me a red card,” Lopez explained. “He was saying both of us were going to get a yellow card and me and Khalifah agreed, and we just continued playing.”
Lopez says Richards is not a player he knows personally, but believes he should apologise for the bite. But he says they did not have any confrontation before the incident and although he thinks Richards should have received a harsher reprimand, he thinks he has received enough condemnation for his actions.
“The referee did his best,” Lopez said. “I should have received a penalty and a yellow card, and he should get a red card, but the referee didn’t see it that way, so we work with his decision. I have no hard feelings towards him and I feel a little sorry from him, but I am not going to have him up,” he said.
Lopez said he hopes Richards learns from the incident that modern football, with all the cameras trained on various players, means you can get away with very little now.
“My advice to him is to find other ways to get an opponent off his game,” he said. “But the biting thing, he went wrong on that. He felt no one saw when he bit me, but even if he got away, the TV would have pointed him out and he would have to attend a disciplinary meeting. But I feel everybody deserves a second chance, and he should get a second chance.”
JC head coach Davian Ferguson said although Richards was put on to stem the flow of JC’s attack, he believes the player’s method was a personal choice and not an instruction from the KC coaching staff.
“Richards is a player I know well and have a lot of time for,” Ferguson said. “But he has to understand that in football he has to keep it clean. Sometime we lose our heads in the heat of battle and do stuff we regret, but we have to learn and move on; and he will learn because KC management will take action not only to punish him, but to also help him to avoid such a situation in the future.
“This is not something we want in our game. But I know the Kingston College coaching staff well, and I don’t want to believe they are the ones who instigated this. These are youngsters and sometimes you teach them stuff and they go out of the pitch and do something totally different.
“But this incident has caused the focus to shift from the fact that Jamaica College qualified for the final to this unsavoury type of behaviour.”
KC head coach Ludlow Bernard said the school will not comment on the incident until they have finished discussions internally.
KC went on to lift the Champions Cup with a 1-0 win over Clarendon College on Saturday, while JC now look ahead to their Manning Cup final against St Andrew Technical High School at the National Stadium on Friday.