MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Ramón Jesurún, the head of soccer’s governing body in Colombia, was arrested amid a night of chaos at the Copa America soccer tournament in Miami Gardens.
Jesurún, the president of the Colombian Football Federation and a vice president with CONMEBOL, the group that puts on Copa America, is facing two felony counts of battery on a specified official or employee.
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The 71-year-old also serves on the FIFA Council, a “strategic and oversight body” for soccer’s global governing body.
Jesurún was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center just after 4:15 a.m. Monday, according to jail records, after Colombia lost 1-0 to Argentina in the final.
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According to a Miami-Dade Police Department arrest report, Jesurún and his son, 43-year-old Ramón Jamil Jesurún, are accused of fighting multiple security guards holding people back from a tunnel where media was gathering at around 12:20 a.m. Monday, after the match ended.
Both father and son “became irate” at a guard and began “shouting” at him, police said. The arrest report states the altercation became physical after a security guard asked the men, “yelling in (the guard’s) face,” to step back and placed a palm on the younger Jesurún’s chest to “guide him back.”
That led the elder Jesurún to step forward and push the guard, police said; his son then followed up by grabbing the guard’s neck and punching him. According to the arrest report, that guard later required hospitalization at Jackson North Medical Center in North Miami Beach.
Both men are accused of then fighting other security guards who tried to break up the altercation.
Video shared by Colombian media outlet Publimetro, via Fox Sports Mexico, reportedly shows the brawl.
Both father and son were scheduled to appear in Miami-Dade bond court Monday afternoon. Arrest reports list both as residing at a condominium in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood.
The pair were each initially arrested on three charges of battery on a specified official or employee; that was later reduced to two as a judge found no probable cause to charge them with a third count.
The younger Jesurún is facing an additional misdemeanor battery charge.
Ramon Jesurún’s bond was set at $2,000, while a judge gave Ramón Jamil Jesurún a $4,000 bond, jail records show.