Hearts boss Robbie Neilson says "all hell broke loose" before the Edinburgh side's friendly against Spanish outfit Almeria had to be scrapped, claiming the ropey local ref lost all control and that Alex Cochrane was on the end of a forearm smash.
The Jambos gaffer flew his side out to Spain for a mid-season camp to test themselves against English Championship outfit Blackburn and La Liga's Almeria. Hearts lost 4-0 to John Dahl Tomasson's team during the week and Neilson was hoping for an improvement against top-flight Spanish opposition in the sun.
The Spaniards took the lead shortly before the half hour mark with Dyego Sousa slotting in the opener. But the football itself was thrust into the rear-view mirror as half-time approached when a brawl broke out between the players and coaching staff. It started with a tussle between Cochrane and Rodrigo Ely but it spiralled into chaos and that duo were sent off for instigating the madness.
The game then had to be abandoned before the break and a frustrated Neilson 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.
“You come and play these games and there has to be a competitive edge but there’s a line you can’t cross and it got crossed several times and the referee didn’t have control. He was all over the shop and couldn’t get it going again so we felt there was no point. We got 45 minutes out of it and it was a good runout and we played a couple of days ago so we move on.”
The Jambos return to Premiership action against Kilmarnock in two weeks' and this was the last friendly in their diary before that one. They'll now head back to Scotland and get back to training with international trio Cammy Devlin, Nathaniel Atkinson and Kye Rowles returning to the group.
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