Kolar’s wife claims Roofe almost killed Slavia keeper with horror challenge in Rangers clash
The wife of Slavia Prague goalkeeper Ondrej Kolar claims her husband is lucky to be alive after he was caught by Rangers’ Kemar Roofe.
In last week’s Europa League tie against Slavia, Roofe received a straight red card for a horror challenge in which he planted his boot into the face of Kolar.
The injury looked awful and images posted to social media showed a deep gash across the goalkeeper’s forehead and around his left eye.
Jana Tvrdik is quoted by The Scottish Sun as saying that if Roofe made contact just a few millimetres lower then Kolar’s life would’ve been in danger.
She said, “I know from the doctors that if the impact with the football boot and the studs was only a few millimetres lower, Ondrej could have been maimed for the rest of his life, or his life would even have been endangered.
“Watching that on TV I have never been more afraid in my life. Seeing him motionless with his face such a bloody mess was terrible. The worst thing was the feeling of helplessness.”
If anyone was still under the illusion that Roofe shouldn’t be banned for an extended period because his challenge was an accident, just read those quotes again.
If things had gone slightly worse we’d be talking about one of our players accidentally killing someone.
It is very rare that a footballer picks up a life-threatening injury on the football pitch but when those instances occur the player at fault must be punished.
Accident or not, those challenges need to be eradicated from the game and the only way to do that is to punish the players appropriately.
Whatever ban UEFA end up giving Roofe, it will be hard to argue against it now we have a bit more context for how bad these injuries were.
We wish Kolar a speedy recovery.
In other Rangers news, Keith Hackett has told us that he wants to see Slavia kicked out of the Europa League.