Uruguay boss Marcelo Bielsa blasts CONMEBOL, USA, for Copa America scuffle involving Darwin Nunez

Uruguay boss Marcelo Bielsa defended star forward Darwin Nunez after he was the center of a dispute between La Celeste players and Colombia fans

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• Scuffle breaks out at end of Uruguay vs Colombia
• Darwin Nunez center of dispute
• La Celeste boss Bielsa blasts tournament & security

• Table of Contents

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  WHAT HAPPENED?

  Uruguay boss Marcelo Bielsa has blasted the USA and CONMEBOL over Copa America 2024, as well as the measures in place intended to make tournament succeed.

  After the conclusion of their semifinal loss to Colombia this week, La Celeste's Darwin Nunez and Ronald Araujo were pictured in the stands in a scuffle with supporters of Los Cafeteros.

  Bielsa defended his squad, claiming the security measures in place were not sufficient for a tournament of this stature.

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  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  Video replays showed Nunez in an altercation with Colombia fans, with punches thrown, while Araujo was also included in the event. It occurred after supporters of Los Cafeteros entered the "family" section of Uruguay players.

  Bielsa came to the defense of the Nunez, despite reports of potential disciplinary action.

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  WHAT THE URUGUAYAN FEDERATION SAID

  Condemning the incident, the UFA said: "This event took place in a context in which the proportion of Uruguayan fans was very small. Most of them were families, and there were insufficient security measures in place.

  "Given these facts, the players' behavior was inevitable and natural," as the statement also noted that they also "strongly condemned" the aggression of the incident.

• WHAT BIELSA SAID

  "One has to speak thinking about all the threats he will receive if he speaks," an angry Bielsa noted in a news conference in advance of Uruguay's Copa America third-place match with Canada. "So, the only thing I can tell you is that the players reacted the same way any human being would..

  "If you see what happened happen and there's [no other process to escape] and they are attacking their girlfriends, their mothers, a baby, their wives, their mothers — what would you do?"

  The La Celeste boss added, "Are you asking if there's going to be sanctions to the ones that went to defend? It's a level of complicity, because the questions also act as a way to accomplice, I don't know if all of you think the same way, if the question you ask wouldn't be made by someone else, but this is what you journalists should be saying, not what I should be saying, with the risk of opening my mouth.

  "When you see that there's an overreaction, when you see a violent action, of course no one is going to be in favor of a violent reaction. But the first thing you have to see is what are they reacting to? And if there was any other way to do it differently, and you all know this, but you want us on this side to open our mouths about it so it's not you who point what happened and then are affected in any way."