A Turkish football match turned into chaos when a violent fan ran onto the pitch and assaulted a player.
The TFF second division match between Goztepe and Altay quickly boiled over as the derby garnered worldwide attention for all the wrong reasons.
Altay Ozan goalkeeper Evrim Ozenc fell victim to the incident as he was brutally attacked by a supporter of the home team in the city of Izmir.
Following a stoppage due to the presence of an ambulance on the pitch to handle an incident in the stands requiring medical attention for the supporters, Ozenc was in discussion with one of his teammates when the supporter surrendered in the field.
With a corner flag in hand, he raced behind the goalie and unleashed a series of aggressive jabs with the weapon.
The 29-year-old goalkeeper was hit twice which caused the corner flag to burst into pieces as the other supporters looked on in disbelief.
After hitting Ozenc several times, the supporter was finally tackled to the ground and taken off, with the goalkeeper being sent to hospital to be checked.
Given the earlier stoppage of fireworks being thrown into the local by the away supporters, coupled with the aggression of a player, the referee then decided to call off the game following the ugly scenes.
And that’s not all that happened on Sunday.
The Russian Cup tie between Zenit Saint Petersburg and Spartak Moscow descended into chaos when six red cards were issued after a mass brawl in stoppage time.
Quincy Promes and Wílmar Barrios began to unravel, which forced the referee to forcibly separate the pair, before the players and staff rushed in and, as Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy might put it, “things degenerated rapidly”.
Three players from each team were sent off, including two already substituted and one unused substitute. Zenit then won the penalty shootout 4-2.