Hearts' friendly clash with Spanish side Almeria has been ABANDONED due to a mass brawl between the two teams.
Robbie Neilson has taken his Jambos abroad for some warm weather training ahead of a return to league action, and an anything-but-friendly match with Almeria was on the cards to get match fitness back up. But the game had to be halted by the referee before half time after a 'full-blown fist fight' erupted between the two sets of players.
In the melee, it has been reported that Alex Cochrane was sent off for Hearts while Rodrigo Ely also saw red for the opposition. A Hearts tweet on social media read: "Following altercations between both sets of players, the decision has been made to abandon the match."
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A clip circulating on social media seems to show Cochrane floored by a Spanish player after chasing down a challenge on a teammate. What ensues is a mass brawl between both sets of teams that eventually leads to the referee halting the action.
Robbie Neilson says it was chaos to watch, he told Hearts TV: "We were playing the game - it was a very competitive game - and all of a sudden on the far side their was a tackle from Alex which I thought was a standard tackle and all hell broke loose with the players running round it, forearm smashes from their centre half on Alex.
"The ref totally lost control of it. Benches were over and there were about 60 people on the pitch. It was a bit of a shambles and we felt with it being a friendly game and with a number of injuries there was no point in carrying on because tensions were extremely high to say the least."
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