World No.33 Kim Huybrechts suffered a double fracture in his right shoulder after being beaten up by football hooligans following Antwerp’s defeat by Union Saint-Gilloise
Kim Huybrechts has been forced to undergo surgery on a broken shoulder after being set upon by hooligans at a football match.
Huybrechts is a fan of Antwerp and attended the Belgian side’s game against Union Saint-Gilloise on Thursday. After witnessing Antwerp’s 1-0 defeat in the Belgian Cup at the King Baudouin Stadium, he made his way home through Brussels when he and a friend were attacked by rival supporters.
According to his wife, Dana Verhaegen, Huybrechts’ friend Kevin was attacked with a motorcycle helmet and, as he tried to escape, the darts star was tackled, punched and kicked while on the ground. He managed to get away to where the buses for Antwerp fans were leaving, where he received help.
The world No.33 was taken to hospital, where it emerged that he had a double fracture of his right shoulder. The injury is particularly worrying, given it was sustained to his throwing arm.
“As many have already heard, things went seriously wrong today during the cup final,” Verhaegen wrote on Facebook. “In a nutshell: Match end, Antwerp supporters walking along a path through a park in a crowd towards the buses. The line gets stuck due to the grim atmosphere. Kim and Kevin want to pass the line through an opening in the fence to get to the buses faster and are attacked from behind. Verdict: while Kim lay on the ground and took punches, he suffered a double fracture of the collarbone, unfortunately in his right arm.”
It remains to be seen how long Huybrechts will be out for while he recovers, but his participation in the World Cup of Darts in June is now in severe doubt. Huybrechts was due to compete alongside Belgian compatriot Dimitri Van den Bergh at the event between June 27 and 30.
There is concern that his situation could be similar to Erik Clarys, who broke his throwing arm in five places after a fall and was forced to quit the sport. “We hope that things will not go so smoothly for Kim, because you wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Clarys said on Thursday.
The injury comes after a difficult period for Huybrechts, who was fined £1,500 and issued with a formal warning by the Darts Regulation Authority in February after Van den Bergh and Mike De Decker filed complaints against him.
Huybrechts had reportedly told De Decker: “Mike, who knows you might still throw the World Cup this year. You never know when someone falls down the stairs.”
Van den Bergh and Huybrechts had played alongside each other despite obvious tension between each other. Huybrechts was then caught on video slapping De Decker in a scuffle in an airport. He was deemed by the darts authorities to have acted inappropriately and aggressively.
