The Dutch football association KNVB suspended 37 amateur clubs from competition and banned 34 players for life for breaking rules on verbal and physical violence in the first half of the current season.

In addition, nine players were banned for 10 years and 40 for periods of between two and 10 years, the association said.
The suspensions are part of the association’s efforts to get tough on violence and aggression at all levels of the sport. ‘Monday morning conversation about football should be about the good things, not about the behaviour of a handful of spoilers,’ Anton Binnenmars, head of amateur football at the association, said in a statement.
A recent example is that of the 77-year-old man, attacked by an angry supporter at an amateur match in Amsterdam. He died of his injuries.
Some 60% of cases brought before the association’s disciplinary board involved senior male players, but junior and women’s teams are not immune to aggression, the Volkskrant said, without giving a further break-down in statistics.
Injuries
Meanwhile, research by Utrecht University’s teaching hospital shows six out of 10 players are injured at some point during each football season. On average they are off work for five days and cannot play for 16 days.
The researchers followed 20 first-class amateur teams in the 2009-2010 season to reach their conclusions. Knee, ankle and hamstring injuries accounted for nearly half the total.
In addition, KNVB-recommended warming up exercises did not appear to make a difference to the injury rate, the report, quoted by Nos television, said.