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911 audio shows Florida youth soccer director called police on the mother of a 3-year-old standout

A Winter Park league director called police on the mother of Nevada, a Black 3-year-old soccer standout. His family says he was removed for playing too well.

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A soccer ball and scattered water bottles rest on the grass beside a wooden bench at an empty youth practice field

A Florida family says a youth soccer league turned to police over the weekend after their 3-year-old son kept beating kids two years older than him. Newly released 911 audio now lays out how the league director described the scene when he made the call.

The standoff unfolded at an i9 Sports game on a field in Winter Park. The boy, Nevada, was running past 5-year-old opponents and scoring over and over, according to his family. His parents say grown-ups on the other side grumbled about how long he held on to the ball before the league moved to take him off the team.

On the recording the director tells a dispatcher that an "unruly parent" was trailing him around the field and insulting him in front of a crowd. He identifies the mother as a Black woman wearing pink and says she was using Instagram to make him look bad. He presses for an officer to hurry because the family planned to leave within 10 minutes and says he wants her removed right away.

"He's done nothing but play soccer"

Body camera video shows Nevada's mother, Martasia, asking the officers what her family had done wrong. She told them they usually stand apart from the other parents at games and had not been arguing with anyone. She said she had spotted a group of adults huddled up talking about her son.

"He's done nothing but play soccer," she told the officers.

In a clip the family posted online the boy's father says police showed up for a 3-year-old "because he had the ball too much."

How it ended

The family walked off the field on its own and got Nevada's registration fee back. His parents say i9 Sports also dropped him from the program and handed them a trespass notice. Those claims have not been backed up by league records or by police.

As of Monday neither the league nor police had given a public explanation for why officers were brought in.

A toddler with a following

Nevada practices with his father three hours a day. His parents had already drawn a large social media audience with videos of his footwork, including matchups against older kids.

His mother says the ordeal left him "traumatized." She says former pro player Eddie Johnson has offered to take the boy under his wing and that Nevada is set to start Johnson's youth training program in January.

Comedian KevOnStage was among those who asked online why police would be pulled into a dispute at a children's soccer game. He said he worried about the lesson an encounter like this teaches young Black kids.

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