A contentious video from the ongoing Iranian Men’s Championship sparked outrage in the volleyball community of the Middle East country.
During the match of the 2022–23 Men’s Super League between Mes Rafsanjan and Haraz Amol yesterday, the head coach of the latter team allowed himself to behave in a way that’s totally unforgivable for an expert working at such a level of volleyball. At any level of volleyball, that is. As if slapping a girl in Malaysia during a U-14 match wasn’t enough, we just saw another physical attack by a head coach toward his own player. To make matters worse, it was the head coach of the Iran Men’s National Team who was at the center of the occurrence.
Behrouz Ataei, swung to slap the outside hitter of his squad, a 21-year-old former U-21 and U18 Iran National Team member, Erfan Jalalinejad. The reason for Ataei to act like this was the fact that Jalalinejad protested against a referee’s decision, which cost his team losing a point in the third set that was already slipping out Haraz’s hands. Even before Ataei tried to physically confront Jalalinejad, one of his other players shoved the player in question by hitting him hard in the chest.
