Hearts friendly abandoned after ‘altercations’


Hearts’ friendly match with UD Almeria in Spain was abandoned in the first half after fighting broke out between players.

The Scottish Premiership side were trailing 1-0 to Dyego Sousa’s opener when Hearts’ Alex Cochrane and Almeria’s Rodrigo Ely were sent off.

“The decision has been made to abandon the match,” the club tweeted.

Head coach Robbie Neilson told Hearts TV “all hell broke loose” after Cochrane’s challenge.

“It was a very competitive game.” the Hearts boss added. “Then on the far side there was a tackle from Alex [Cochrane] which I thought was a standard tackle, and then all hell broke loose.

“Players were round, there was a forearm smash from their centre-half on Alex, then the ref just totally lost control of it. The benches were over and there was about 60 people on the pitch.

“It was a shambles so we just felt it was a pre-season game and we’ve already got a number of injuries. There was no point carrying on because tensions were extremely high.”

Almeria tweeted that the referee had suspended the match, but are yet to comment further.

Hearts are currently on a domestic break and resume their league campaign against Kilmarnock on 17 December.

Neilson’s side previously lost 4-0 to friendly opponents Blackburn Rovers while in Spain.

“There’s always going to be a competitive edge,” Neilson said. “But there’s a line you can’t really cross and I think it was crossed several times. The referee just didn’t do a good job of controlling it.

“We’ve got a training session this afternoon for a few of them, then we’ll train the next couple of days and come back.”

Hearts





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