During a children's football match in Argentina, a player from a non-Jewish team shouted "Jews must be killed" at a player from a Jewish team.
The incident occurred in the middle of the second half of the Vicente López Sports League (LIDE) children's soccer match between Hebraica Club hears and Mitre Club on Saturday. As soon as it happened, the boy from Hebraica sought out the match referee and reported what he had been told.
The match was immediately suspended.
Despite the match being suspended, antisemitic sentiment persisted. An attendee told Argentinian paper Clarín that "We heard from another stand another group of parents shouting something like 'you are genocidal, you kill people, then you put yourself as victims, you are genocidal.'"
"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They were arguing, it was set up as a thing of sides, of parents of one club and the other, they were just shouting clearly antisemitic slogans."
Three marked outbreaks of agression
"With what happened, it is clear that we can no longer go as visitors because yesterday there were three marked outbreaks of aggression," the witness added.
However, according to Clarín, the anti-Jewish sentiment was present from before the match even began. Witnesses told Clarín that violent phrases from adult groups directed at the Jewish community could be heard in the stands, and some relatives of boys from Hebraica had to move away due to jeering.
The Delegation of Argentine Israeli Associations (DAIA) issued strong condemnation of the incident, saying "these acts, in addition to being offensive and painful, represent a serious manifestation of hatred and discrimination that cannot and should not take place in any area of our society, much less in a space that should be for meeting, respect and education, such as sports."
"From the DAIA we express our concern and reaffirm the commitment to continue working to promote reflection, empathy and the values that sustain democratic coexistence. Antisemitism, in any of its forms, cannot be naturalized or minimized."
This follows a not dissimilar incident from the end of September where a group of high school students were videoed shouting, “Today, we burn the Jews” on a tour bus in Buenos Aires. The tour coordinator seemingly joined in the chanting rather than intervening, as did one of the accompanying fathers.
Argentinian President Javier Milei called the incident "reprehensible."