By Kenneth Tan/Red Sports

Park Royal on Scotts, Sunday, September 12, 2010 — Five days after the fateful mass brawl incident between the Young Lions and Beijing Guoan Talent FC, representatives from both teams met up for the first time for a luncheon session at Carousel, a restaurant located in Park Royal on Scotts. The incident that happened on September 7th rocked the local football fraternity, with videos of the brawl viewed worldwide over YouTube.

Other than the respective captains and coaches from both teams, a notable attendee at the luncheon was the deputy general manager of the Beijing Guoan parent team, Mr Wei Kexing. He specially flew over from China after the incident to aid in the investigations.

“I’m glad to have came over to meet both sets of players. We are deeply apologetic about this incident. Beijing Guoan FC has always been against unsportsmanlike and violent behaviour, our coaching panel is not only responsible to get the players to do well, but also for them to be professional footballers.

“Our players are aware that they have not only let down the club, but also their supporters and their parents. We’ll be more stringent in the future to ensure such incidents does not happen again. Both sets of players are young and it’s understandable that they are a bit rash. I hope that the Disciplinary Committee will take that into account and give them a chance as they have a long journey ahead,” he said. Mr Wei also said that he will not rule out expulsions if any players was found guilty.

“Since this is Hari Raya, in the spirit of forgiving, it was a mutual thing by both clubs to put this matter behind us,” explained Young Lions team manager Eugene Loo about how the luncheon session came about.

“The players are young with an average age of 19.8. Sometimes emotions run high in a football game and they reacted in a way which cannot be condoned. It’s a learning process for them and they have to face the music now. We’ll leave it to the Disciplinary Panel and accept whatever punishment that is given,” he said.

Meanwhile Beijing team captain Zheng Zhaohui hoped that this incident will help them to mature in their daily lives.

“After the incident, we regretted and blamed ourselves for it. At that point of time, we panicked and did not deal with in a very good manner. I know we let the coaches, families and our fans down. I hope we can learn from this lesson and from now on, we’ll be more matured in our daily lives,” he said.

Initial steps of reconciliation has been made with Young Lions captain Hariss Harun offering a box of Hari Raya goodies to his counterpart Zheng during the lunch while chairman Wei invited the Young Lions team to use their training facilities in China in preparations for the upcoming Asian Games in November.

So far the goodwill gestures have been well received by both clubs.

“When you come to China, I’ll make dumplings for you!” replied Zheng in Mandarin to a bemused Hariss, who needed translation to understand what his counterpart said.

“We thank them for their offer. Our preparations (for Asian Games) have already been made, but we still look forward to working them in the future for youth teams to learn from one another,” was Loo’s response to Wei’s offer.

The verdict regarding the punishments are still not clear yet. The cloud will slowly clear over the next two weeks with both teams due to submit the respective accounts of the incident on Tuesday, September 14th for the Disciplinary Panel to make their decision.

The Young Lions squad will form the bulk of the Singapore U-23 squad that is Asian Games-bound. With their next three S.League fixtures postponed, there could be problems of fixture congestion and fatigue for the players with two warm-up tournaments scheduled.

The U-23 squad will take part in the Thang Long Cup in Vietnam on September 28th before embarking for Thailand for a quadrangular involving Malaysia, Thailand and Qatar on October 14th.