Local football teams mull over penalties for fight

Two local football teams were mulling over whether to issue penalties to players from Shanghai Shenhua Football Club and Shanghai Shenxin Football Club on Sunday, after three athletes from both teams were injured during a friendly game at Kangqiao Football Stadium on the weekend.

The minutes-long fight was triggered after a throw in during the match, when Shenhua's Dai Lin went in hard on Shenxin's Antonio Flavio of Brazil. Flavio's teammate Wang Yun quickly followed with a minor foul on Shenhua's newest arrival, Mario Bozic of Bosnia and Herzegovina - after which Dai was struck in the face by Wang.

A brawl broke out, drawing at least a dozen players from the two teams - leaving Shenxin's Zhu Jiawei with a dislocated shoulder - the most serious of the injuries.

The fight came just ahead of the new season that starts March 3, when the two teams will fight for the local spotlight - and when Shenxin - which has represented Nanchang in Jiangxi Province for the last eight years - returns with the hopes of reclaiming its hometown Shanghai under its recently granted China Super League-status.

Avid football fan Zhou Yuan said Sunday that the players responsible for the fight that lasted a solid some five minutes ought to be punished.

"We get that Shenxin has just come back home, but Shanghai doesn't need another team," he told the Global Times Sunday. "Shenxin's Wang Yun should be banned from at least five games during the upcoming Super League season."

A Shenxin spokesman, who declined to be named Sunday, told the Global Times that senior team officials were still looking into the fight, while Shenhua said on its official microblog that its head coach Jean Tigana would have the final say on consequences for his players.

Meanwhile, perhaps Shenhua's most-prized player, Nicolas Anelka, refrained from the fight, but was seen trying to pull his teammates back.

Both of the teams are next scheduled to meet on the field in May.