Let us start by saying, abuse in whatever shape or form is never okay.
Recently, a video of a local U-14 girls volleyball coach from Johor went viral after he slapped two of his teenage players during a team huddle.
The girls reacted – or rather did not react – with expressionless faces after being slapped.
The coach has since been suspended and condemned for his actions. However, one football coach hailing all the way from the Middle East, highlighted the incident on his TikTok, arguing the girls’ non-reaction showed it was normal behavior for their coach to behave that aggressively.
In the video, Mehran Rowshan, a former youth football coach for Arsenal F.C. and also a multi F.A Charter Standard football coach, stitched a video of the incident and said: “This fossil is slapping his players but what bothers me is not the idiot slapping his players, it’s the reaction or should I say the no-reaction of those two innocent girls? It means that this happens regularly, this is a standard and they are okay with it. What a disappointing video in 2023, where are the parents? The supervisors? Where are the people that are supposed to do the safeguarding around children?
@mehranrowshan If this happens around you 😡, don’t stay quite! A fossil slapping his players! #bullying #dinosaurcoach #safeguardingchildren ♬ Sweet Dreams – Ravens Rock
Mehran has a verified TikTok account with more than a million followers. The majority of his content focuses on motivating his audience.
The incident occurred during a volleyball match between Johor and Malacca, which was live-streamed on Facebook by the Johor Volleyball Association. This is also the part where we ought to thank technology or else the incident would have gone unnoticed.
According to the video, at the 20-minute mark, the Malacca team, gave way to Johor to gain a point -which is fine because that’s how sports work, you win some, you lose some. However, the coach seemed to let his emotions bypass his professionalism.
As they took a little pause to strategize, with Johor leading 16–11, the coach from team Melaka approached and slapped the faces of two of his players, who were both under 14 years old. The girls appeared relatively calm and were later consoled by their teammates.
Those who tuned in to the match on social media also took the time to criticize the coach’s actions, some urging action to be taken.
What do you think of the coach’s behaviour? Let us know in the comments.
