{"id":99528,"date":"2015-03-15T13:29:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T13:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=99528"},"modified":"2015-03-15T13:29:20","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T13:29:20","slug":"footballer-jailed-for-killing-referee-with-single-punch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=99528","title":{"rendered":"Footballer jailed for killing referee with single punch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">An amateur footballer has been jailed for killing a referee with a single punch after he was booked in a Michigan United Soccer League match.<\/p>\n<p>John Bieniewicz was about to show Bassel Saad a second yellow card and send the 37-year-old mechanic off when Saad knocked the official unconscious.<\/p>\n<p>The referee, 44, died two days after the game in Detroit last June.<\/p>\n<p>Saad pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced on Friday to at least eight years in jail.<\/p>\n<p>As Saad was about to be taken from the court, Mr Bieniewicz&#8217;s widow Kristen held up a red card and said: &#8220;I would like to serve Mr Saad with the red card that he was entitled to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-feature image full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/81658000\/jpg\/_81658335_bassel_saad_redcard_ap.jpg\" alt=\"Kristen Bieniewicz shows Bassel Saad (back turned) the red card\" width=\"624\" height=\"260\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Mr Bieniewicz&#8217;s family said they were &#8220;heartbroken&#8221; by his death<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Judge Thomas Cameron said: &#8220;For better or for worse, you&#8217;ve come to personify all that&#8217;s wrong with many people&#8217;s belief about the escalation of violence in sports.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Saad was ordered to pay $9,200 (\u00a36,200) in funeral expenses.<\/p>\n<p>Michigan lawmakers are to consider new crimes for assaults on sports referees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An amateur footballer has been jailed for killing a referee with a single punch after he was booked in a Michigan United Soccer League match. John Bieniewicz was about to show Bassel Saad a second yellow card and send the 37-year-old mechanic off when Saad knocked the official unconscious. The referee, 44, died two days [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":99532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-99528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}