The match between RKC Waalwijk and FC Utrecht was briefly stopped on Saturday evening after plastic cups were thrown onto the field in the stadium in Utrecht. That happened just before halftime. The score at that time was 1-0 for the home club. The game in the Eredivisie was resumed a little later. The final score was 1-1.
The incident happened after RKC striker Michiel Kramer had just missed a penalty and was allowed to take the penalty again after FC Utrecht keeper Vasilios Barkas had come off the line too early. He didn’t get to do that, because plastic glasses were thrown towards the goal. Referee Serdar Gözübüyük sent the players in.
After the cups were cleared away, Kramer was still able to dock. Now the RKC captain did use the penalty and made the score 1-1. Victor Jensen had opened the scoring.
Stricter rules
The KNVB tightened the football rules considerably in April, after Ajax player Davy Klaassen suffered a head injury in the cup match against Feyenoord due to a lighter thrown at him from the crowd. The new rule was that as soon as something is thrown onto the field, play is temporarily stopped. If anyone is hit, the match is permanently ended.
Debate arose over the rule as more and more meetings were interrupted. But Marianne van Leeuwen, director of professional football, confirmed in September that the rules regarding abandoning matches will not be adjusted.
“I think it is very dangerous to adjust the measures now, because they have had an effect since they were introduced,” Van Leeuwen said in front of the ESPN camera during a conference in Zeist. “There have been five hundred matches since these measures came into effect and five were ultimately stopped permanently. We see that much less has been thrown since the introduction and we wanted to get rid of that.”
Due to the 1-1 result, RKC remains number 15 in the Eredivisie rankings, FC Utrecht climbs to twelfth place in the rankings.