Watch: Salem PE teacher thrashes football players

A video showing a man physically thrashing and hurling abuses at a football team in Salem, Tamil Nadu has now gone viral.

The incident came to light when a video posted on social media on Monday showed a man, purportedly a physical education teacher, lambasting his team after they lost a football match.

In the video - which has amassed over eight lakh views - Annamalai, the teacher, can be seen slapping and kicking his wards whilst hurling a barrage of abuses in Tamil.

Tf! This is How Coach meeting with the team team after they lost the match💀
pic.twitter.com/BnKsrysbBy

— Ghar Ke Kalesh (@gharkekalesh) August 12, 2024

“What are your chattering about”

"Are you a man or a woman,” he says to the first player.

“You only played defensively and didn't advance the ball forward. How can you let him score. How did you let the ball get past you."

The coach then moves to the next boy with a "Chip the ball into the goal" feedback.

With the team squatting on the ground in a straight line, the coach then walks ahead screaming - "You’re not running on the field. You didn’t use your height to your advantage for headers."

And finally, he picks out the player at the end of the line for not staying focused during the game.

"What are you chattering about during the game? Instead of talking, focus on playing. Won’t you just be quiet and play?"

Slapping, kicking and pulling the boys’ hair aside, the teacher can be heard using foul language when abusing the team.

Teacher suspended

The boys reportedly are from a private school at Salem in Tamil Nadu and Annamali, the man abusing the boys, is the physical education teacher at the school.

With the video having gone viral, the Sangagiri District Education Officer reportedly launched an investigation and in keeping with the findings, the teacher has since been suspended.

The boys, all seated on the floor and surrounded by students in school uniform, withstood the public humiliation with heads bowed and angst writ large on their faces.

The incident received widespread condemnation on social media.

“A coach is supposed to guide, correct and motivate,” said a person commenting on the post.

“Disgusting. That’s not the way to instill confidence in the character of players. The coach is a slave driver,” read another comment.

The incident highlights the culture of sports at the grassroots in the country.

Most physical education teachers aren’t trained coaches and instead of providing constructive feedback, resort to instilling terror as a means of eliciting respect and compliance.

If anything, the suspension of the teacher and widespread circulation of the video should prevent such actions from occurring in the future in sports at the grassroots.