Richard Nieuwenhuizen (aged 41) was a Dutch man who was attacked and fatally injured on 2 December 2012 after serving as a volunteer linesman at a youth football match in Almere in which his youngest son was playing for the home team. The attack on him, for which six teenage players on the opposing team and one parent were subsequently convicted, and his death the following day have led to widespread protests and discussion in the Netherlands about violence associated with youth football, and continue to be an international example of the dangers of violence surrounding football matches.
Attack and death Nieuwenhuizen, 41 years old and a resident of Almere, had three sons, the oldest a former coach at SC Buitenboys, the local football club of the Almere Buiten district, the youngest a player on the B3 team, one of the club's under-17 teams.Stuart James, "Richard Nieuwenhuizen: Dutch football and the death of a linesman. A country and a sport are still trying to come to terms with how volunteering to officiate at his son's club cost a man his life", The Guardian, 21 December 2012. On 2 December 2012 he officiated as a linesman at a home match played by this team against the B1 team from Nieuw Sloten, a club with players from various parts of the Nieuw-West district of Amsterdam. After the match, he was attacked and knocked down by several Nieuw Sloten players after an argument in which the players accused him of having made biased decisions. Parents intervened and he stood up, but was again knocked down and kicked in the head and around the neck. He refused medical attention and went home, returning to watch a later match, but collapsed. In hospital his condition worsened and he died the following evening, 3 December, as a result of the injury to his head,Majid Mohamed, "Richard Nieuwenhuizen death: Six teenagers and 50-year-old father convicted of manslaughter in shocking case of referee killed over a game of football: Death of official who was volunteering at his son's junior club match shocked the Netherlands", The Independent, 17 June 2013."Club in shock after Dutch linesman Richard Nieuwenhuizen is kicked to death after football match: Richard Nieuwenhuizen, 41, an assistant referee for the Dutch youth club Buitenboys was rushed to hospital after being punched and kicked by players from opponents Nieuw-Sloten", The Telegraph, 4 December 2012 (video).Associated Press, "Youth soccer players, father convicted in Netherlands in beating death of volunteer linesman", Fox News.com, 17 June 2013.Peter Zantingh, "Wat gebeurde er bij Buitenboys - Nieuw Sloten? Vandaag begint de rechtszaak", NRC Handelsblad, 29 May 2013. which had led to an infarct in a damaged vertebral artery.Omroep Flevoland, "Hoge Raad: Straffen voor doden grensrechter blijven in stand", 14 April 2015.
Trial and verdict The trial began on 29 May 2013 in Lelystad.Sterling, Associated Press, "Trial begins in death of linesman: Seven teenagers, one adult charged with manslaughter in the Netherlands", Montreal Gazette, 29 May 2013.Agence France Presse and Bonnie Malkin, "Dutch teens and father go on trial over death of linesman: Seven Dutch teens and a father will go on trial today over the death an amateur football linesman, a killing that sent shockwaves around the Netherlands and the world", The Telegraph, 29 May 2013. On 17 June 2013, six teenage players, who had been 15–16 years old at the time of the incident,Bax, 2013, p. 15.Agence France Presse, "Getöteter Linienrichter: Lange Haftstrafen", Panorama, Berliner Zeitung, 17 June 2013. and the 50-year-old father of one of the players were convicted of manslaughter. El-Hasan D., the father, was sentenced to six years in prison; five of the teenagers to the maximum of two years in youth detention, six months suspended; and one, the man's son, to one year, two months suspended. An additional teenager, aged 15, was found innocent of manslaughter and sentenced to 30 days, 17 suspended, for assault on a goalkeeper."Seven men convicted following death of Dutch linesman Richard Nieuwenhuizen - video", The Guardian, 18 June 2013.Agence France Presse, "Dutch teens jailed for beating linesman Richard Nieuwenhuizen to death" , news.com.au, 17 June 2013.Bianca Brasser, , Metro, 18 June 2013. In addition, the court sentenced those convicted to 58,000 euro in damages, of which 25,000 euro constituted shock damages for the youngest son witnessing the manslaughter, and the remainder was intended to compensate Nieuwenhuizen's sons for the partial loss of financial support by their parents."Maken daders dode grensrechter vandaag 68.000 euro over?" ("Will convicts causing death linesman wire 68.000 euro today?"), Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, 13 Januari 2016.
The defendants had argued that Nieuwenhuizen's death was due to a medical condition known as segmental mediolytic arteriopathy, with testimony by a British forensic pathologist, Christopher Milroy, who performed an autopsy on the body."Linesman may not have died from being kicked: new report", Dutch News, 24 May 2013.Bax, 2013, p. 179. The court however found it proven that the death resulted from the injuries suffered from the attack, with the judge explaining that the assailants caused an indescribable amount of suffering.Annemarie Coevert, "Hof handhaaft straffen in grensrechterzaak", NRC Handelsblad, 19 December 2013.
Upon appeal, the court in Leeuwarden ruled on 19 December 2013 that the sentence of one player should be slightly reduced, but that all the other sentences were just and should be upheld. Following cassation, the Supreme Court ruled on 14 April 2015 that the court of appeals sufficiently supported the ruling that there could almost certainly not be any other cause of the death of Nieuwenhuizen than the kicks to his head and neck, upholding the sentences and rejecting the appeal to reopen the case.
The disciplinary committee of the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) awaited the appeals before determining the appropriate disciplinary measures for the players.Graeme Kidd, "Linesman's beating death leads to lifetime football ban", NL Times, 26 October 2015. On 26 October 2015, the disciplinary committee found that the usual maximum suspension of 10 months for youthful players was inappropriate because of the severity of the incident, and ruled that the players convicted of manslaughter should be banned from football for life, with the exception of one player, who showed obvious remorse and was therefore suspended from football for a period of 60 months (from 3 December 2012).
By late 2016, when El-Hasan D. was released on parole for good behavior, all those convicted had been released.Janene Pieters, "Fundraiser launched for man convicted in fatal beating of football linesman", NL Times, 28 December 2016. By this time, only a small amount of the compensation to the victim's family that the seven convicts were jointly sentenced to pay had been paid. Because earlier deadlines for payment had passed, the amount to be paid had increased to 68,000 euro. If the full amount was not paid by 14 January 2017, they could be put under pressure to pay in two ways: each person could be incarcerated for up to one year (this would not lower the amount of compensation), and a bailiff could seize the property of each mature convict (in this case only El-Hasan D.).
Because El-Hasan D. was on welfare so that he could not comply with payment arrangements and the other convicts also asserted they could not pay the damages, members of his family posted a letter on Facebook in "a desperate call for [financial] help". In this public letter, El-Hasan D. was described as a "dear father" and "active football father", who "suffered a lot of injustice" because someone had to pay the price so that an international statement could be made about violence in football, causing him and his family to end up in a "nightmare". The authors of the letter assert that he "only tried to calm things down and to put an end to a trifle on the football field and that cost him dearly", and that he desperately tried to prove his innocence, but "that yielded nothing in this 'fair' country" because the judge refused to look at the specifics of the case. However, the court did consider El-Hasan D.'s share in the death of Nieuwenhuizen to be proven, and described in a reconstruction: "Especially the mature man kicked [Nieuwenhuizen] in the head. In an attempt to push the mature man away from [Nieuwenhuizen], the keeper of [SC Buitenboys], [Victim 2], ended up on the ground as well." Especially in response to the fierce accusations, many responded with outrage and anger, mainly on social media, and among others called the family of El-Hasan D. murderers and beggars, after which they removed the call to raise funds.
Public response Aggressive behaviour by parents at youth football matches has been a concern for some time in the Netherlands. It gave rise to a television programme, Heibel langs de lijn (Trouble at the touchline), on which parents' behaviour is shown at their children's request. The Stichting Ideële Reclame (SIRE), an association that makes advertisements aimed at addressing and improving societal problems, dedicated two television advertising campaigns to this topic, in 2007 with the slogan "Give children back their game" and four years later connecting parents' work frustrations with their mistreatment of their children in the weekend, with the slogan "Leave Monday to Friday at home on Saturday". There had also been a previous death a year earlier in Amsterdam, when a youth football player kicked a 77-year-old supporter of the opposing team in the chest, but that was ruled voluntary manslaughter. The KNVB had already introduced a programme to help amateur clubs promote respect, additional training for referees, mandatory punishment for players abusing officials, and a disciplinary committee which reviews incidents after each weekend. Two weeks before the incident, they had launched a campaign entitled Hoe vaak piep jij? (How often do you squeak?) to make players aware of verbal violence on football pitches.Bax, 2013, p. 27.
After an initially unprofessional performance of the KNVB in which the board of SC Buitenboys felt abandoned by the football association, they soon took charge.Bax, 2013, p. 23-27. They cancelled all amateur fixtures the weekend after Nieuwenhuizen's death, the first such cancellation since the 1973 oil crisis, and took out full-page newspaper ads reading Zonder respect geen voetbal (Without respect, no football). A minute's silence was observed at professional matches, and players wore armbands."Three charged over Dutch linesman Richard Nieuwenhuizen death", BBC News Europe, 6 December 2012."Duels afgelast vanwege dood grensrechter", De Telegraaf, 4 December 2012 SC Buitenboys held a silent march on 9 December in which 12,000 people took part. They also organized a memorial match between former star football players and a team of SC Buitenboys, installed a permanent memorial, and announced that they would make the "Without respect, no football" slogan a binding guideline. Many clubs put up signs with the slogan. The Nieuw Sloten club temporarily cancelled all football,"Voorlopig geen voetbal voor Nieuw Sloten", De Telegraaf, 3 December 2012 and three teams announced they would leave the club.Huisman, Charlotte, "Drie elftallen bedanken bij voetbalclub Nieuw Sloten", De Volkskrant, 8 January 2013.