No red card for Bolivian Prez for kneeing political rival in football ‘friendly’!

LONDON - When Bolivian president Evo Morales attended a ‘friendly’ football match in La Paz, he didn’t know it would remain anything but ‘friendly’-known as real Left winger, he lost his temper and kneed an opponent in the groin.

Somehow, he escaped unpunished while his victim, defender Daniel Gustavo Cartagena, was sent off and even threatened with arrest.

The 50-year-old head of state, wearing a green No.10 shirt, was caught on camera smashing his knee into the groin of a player who collapsed to the ground in agony.

The video has become a huge YouTube in South America.

Morales’s violent outburst came after he was fouled on the shin during a game in the capital La Paz on Sunday.

The president was captaining a side playing against a team led by the mayor of La Paz, Luis Revilla Herrero, from a rival political party.

Video footage shows him running up to opponent Cartagena, wearing the number two shirt, and kneeing him violently in the groin.

“I don’t know why I was sent off. I never had a bad intention, I didn’t mean to hurt the President,” the Daily Mail quoted Cartagena, a civil servant in the city hall, as saying afterwards.

The bad-tempered match, to inaugurate a new artificial pitch, ended 4-4 with two players from each team receiving red cards. (ANI)