Complaint of harassment of a U-17 player in Union shakes football: He tells that he tried to commit suicide | Football

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An unfortunate complaint about harassment shakes the world of football. A Former player of the U-17 team of the Spanish Union accuses the former coordinator of the club’s formative football of repeated harassment, situation that led the girl to attempt suicide, leave the institution and give up her dream of being a professional soccer player.

According to a report revealed by Ciper Chile, this player’s nightmare began after being in the U-17 team of the Union, at the end of February 2019.

Back then Branko Zitkovich, 29-year-old was the formative soccer coordinator, including the women’s branch.

In March 2019, she says that after a game she felt bad and told her category coach. He was not going to be able to attend to see his male companions, as was customary after the female meeting, due to his state of health. He assures that that same day, hours later, he received a message by WhatsApp from the coordinator, Branko Zitkovich, asking him how he was doing.

She thought it was because she had been absent from seeing her companions and she justified herself. But he claims that the conversation continued on Zitkovich’s part. The girl explains that the coordinator asked her what grade she was in, the high school where she was studying, where she lived and how her family was made up. “I thought that I asked all my classmates the same questions and that is why I answered them. As he was in charge of those things, I thought it was routine ”, remember in conversation with the aforementioned medium.

He recalls that the questions followed an increasingly personal terrain. “I thought that if I didn’t answer him, he could get me off the team. That’s why I answered the questions, “he says.

Insistence and fear

The girl remembers that he insisted that she should answer him because he needed to know about her. Branko Zitkovich would have said goodbye like this that morning: “Dream crazy. If you dream it, tell me ”.

The next morning, before 8:00 am, she says that the defendant sent her a message again asking if she was dating. “It gave me the feeling that he was looking for something more. I was really scared”, relates. His insistence became more regular, he explains.

“For fear of losing my position in the Spanish Union, I kept responding to him”, the Mint.

One afternoon after they met in training, he claims that Zitkovich asked him hours later and by message: “Would you like to run away with me?”

After that episode, she says that the then coordinator recognized the girl that he liked minor women “and that he found her beautiful.” “It terrified me. It totally changed the tone, ”she says.

Days after that message, the girl recounted that in a training session she went to get water and when she came out of the bathroom Zitkovich approached her and asked her if she wanted to do crazy things with him. The girl remembers that she was paralyzed, she began to cry and so as not to attract more attention, he walked away.

In that training she told one of her closest friends on the team. His partner recommended that he tell someone from the coaching staff.

Dismissal of the coordinator and accusations against the club

“I always thought Branko had more power than me and I was very afraid that they would not believe me ”, tells the girl of only 17 years. She remembers that she first told the physical trainer and that he told her to go to the paramedic, that being a woman she would understand her better.

The little player believes that telling paramedic Liliana Díaz was a very bad idea, according to the report. Ensures that Díaz recommended that she not tell anyone, arguing that she was going to solve it. The girl relates that the paramedic had me send him screenshots of the conversations with the coordinator and then ordered him to erase the photos, conversations and to block Zitkovich. “I trusted and listened to him,” says the girl. Liliana, for her part, denies that she asked her to delete the conversations, according to Ciper.

Then the girl told the technical chief of the female branch, Elian Rosales, who told her while showing her the evidence: “There is a very serious problem and I need to solve it now. Branko sent this condor to himself ”.

The day after that conversation with Rosales, the player was approached by the coordinator after training, while she waited for her father to come and look for her. Just that day it took a while and she remembers that Branko Zitkovich took the opportunity to take her by the arm and say: “Don’t be sapa. I know everything about you, where you study and where you live. I’m going to go find you because of what you’re doing to me ”. She says that she started to cry and asked him to please leave her alone. In the evening, he spoke to her again, now by text message since he had it blocked.

According to them, after Rosales showed the evidence to Luis Baquedano, the general manager of the club, the coordinator was fired. A week later the girl told her family, who asked her why she was no longer going to train and did not leave her room.

“They had my daughter for a week putting up with everything alone, because at the club they recommended that she not tell me anything”, Marilyn Pizarro claims in conversation with Ciper, who the next day went to the club to ask for explanations.

He assures that Elian Rosales told him that “The club regrets what happened and don’t worry, Branko was fired.” For Marilyn it was not enough, her daughter was suffering.

In the girl’s family they remember that at the club they asked her not to tell anyone because they did not want other players to find out and that everything had to be kept low-key.

DT Cristóbal López, who in those same days was dismissed from his position at the club due to performance, agrees that the club “did not want it to be publicized.”

Marilyn told it that same night in the WhatsApp group she had with other representatives of the Union’s U-17 team.

The club assures that they contacted Sename to see the case arguing that “We cannot go into depth, nor are we experts. What the law says is that we resort to these protective areas of the commune and refer the case to them ”.

Under-17 players say that the club summoned the representatives to tell them what had happened, about the dismissal of the official and that the player would not return. “They also asked us not to disclose the issue,” assures an ex-partner of the girl.

The family turned to the lawyer Fernando Álvarez to see legal actions to be taken, but he said that “the expectation of justice for (the girl) could not be met with the evidence we had,” according to the report.

For its part, Luis Baquedano says that the club did everything they could do, in addition to denying that their intention was to lower the profile of the situation and hide the case.

The psychological consequences

In mid-2019, on a weekday, Marilyn Pizarro received a call from an unknown number. His daughter had been found “on an avenue far from his high school.” He had walked and did not remember anything.

According to what they say, after psychologist and psychiatrist sessions he was diagnosed with depression. “What I suffered was very strong for me. I didn’t want to live anymore. I wanted to commit suicide twice ”, laments the girl.

Her mother remembers the day she heard her daughter cry in her room with the door closed: “I decided to go in and found her arms cut off, full of blood.”

Marilyn Pizarro had to quit her job to accompany her daughter in these difficult times.

They say that the 17-year-old girl suffers to this day and that she did not want to play soccer again. “That was one of the biggest damages, he totally abandoned his interest in what he wanted most”, says her mom. Months later and with the help of professional work, his daughter returned to play, but according to what they find, she makes it clear that she does not want to play professionally.

To read the full report you can click here.