A Copa Bolivia quarter-final that should have been remembered for footballing drama instead became a spectacle of chaos and confusion on Tuesday night, as Club Blooming and Real Oruro produced one of the most astonishing mass dismissals in South American football history.

What began as a seemingly routine match exploded into a shocking melee that saw the referee brandish 17 red cards — sixteen of them during a full-scale brawl so wild that police had to wade in with pepper spray to break up the fighting.

According to Bolivian outlet El Potosi, the spark was a confrontation involving Blooming players and Oruro duo Sebastian Zeballos and Julio Vila. Within moments, the tension escalated into a flurry of punches, kicks and shoving that rippled across both teams.

What made the scene even more surreal was the sight of coaches and backroom staff diving into the fray. Oruro coach Marcelo Robledo was not only involved but later photographed in hospital, an image the club shared on Instagram as a stark reminder of the mayhem.

A Night of Red Cards and Blue Lights

The referee, overwhelmed but unrelenting, issued punishments with a severity rarely seen in world football:

• 7 Blooming players sent off (six after the brawl)
• 4 Oruro players dismissed
• 6 red cards to staff members, including Oruro’s coach

The red-card count climbed so rapidly that spectators reportedly lost track of who was still eligible to play.

Blooming later revealed in an Instagram update that a member of their security team required surgery after sustaining a fractured cheekbone during the violence — further evidence of the extraordinary nature of the clash.

Amid the chaos, a football match did have a result. Blooming, who entered the second leg with a 2–1 lead, held on to win the tie 4–3 on aggregate, booking a place in the semi-finals.

Their reward? A showdown with Club Bolivar, reigning champions of Bolivian top-flight football — a team likely to be far more interested in goals than in grappling.

While Blooming progress, the Copa Bolivia is left with a new chapter of ignominy, raising questions about on-field discipline, match security, and how such a meltdown could unfold on a professional stage.

Seventeen red cards, police pepper spray, hospital visits, players and staff streaming off the pitch — this was a night that left even seasoned South American football followers shaking their heads.

In a sport where anything can happen, Bolivia just raised the bar for chaos.

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Women from Sudan’s South Kordofan state have been repeatedly raped and some held as sex slaves by fighters from the warring Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Monday.

The RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It has regularly denied accusations of systematic abuses during a 20-month-old war with Sudan’s army that has devastated the country and displaced more than 12 million people.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said it had documented 79 cases of rape of women and girls as young as seven. It said it had interviewed seven survivors, including one who said she was held with 50 other women and raped repeatedly over three months.

The report said fighters had targeted women from the Nuba group in the remote area that borders South Sudan, and that the attacks amounted to war crimes.

“Survivors described being gang raped, in front of their families or over prolonged periods of time, including while being held as sex slaves by RSF fighters,” Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, said.

Women described being chained together after attempting to escape and kept in “a pen-like setup with wires and tree branches”, the report said.

ACCUSATIONS

Most of the attacks had been reported since the RSF launched assaults on the town of Habila and other settlements on Dec. 31, 2023, the report added.

The army and the SPLM-N, a rebel group largely comprised of people from the Nuba ethnicity, control the rest of the state, which they have fought over for years.

Human Rights Watch quoted one Nuba woman describing how attackers referred to her ethnicity. “As they raped us, they said to each other, ‘These Nuba are our slaves, we can do anything we want,’” she was quoted as saying.

The RSF was accused last year of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing by the United States for a campaign of attacks against members of the Massalit group in West Darfur state. The RSF has denied widespread abuses, but said it would investigate individual soldiers.

Sudan’s army is also accused of war crimes by the United States and UN experts, who have said it has carried out indiscriminate airstrikes in RSF territory and blocked aid – charges dismissed by the army.

The war between the two forces broke out in April 2023 over disagreements on the integration of the two forces during a transition to democracy. The RSF swiftly seized about half of the country, but the army has made recent gains in the capital Khartoum and areas to the south.

-Reuters

The president-general of the African Football and Other Sports Supporters Union (AFFOSSU), Dr Rafiu Oladipo has sent a condolence message to the Guinea Football Federation over the crush that occurred during a local football match earlier in the week.

At least 100 people were reportedly killed in a crush at a football match in Guinea’s second-largest city, Nzérékoré.

That death toll is disputed by many in the country, who believe the true number of dead is closer to 100.

Some reports indicate that events unravelled following a decision by the referee, who sent off two players from the visiting team, Labé, and awarded a controversial penalty kick.

In the message, Dr Oladipo the head of AFFOSSU remarked: “I hereby send my condolences on behalf of all sports supporters of Africa tithe Guinea Football Federation over the sad incidence. May the Souls of those who died during the collapse, rest in perfect peace.

AFFOSSU , the continental supporters club body, was formally recognised by CAF at a ceremony at Alisa Hotel North Ridge in Accra, Ghana in 2008.