Watch: Youth football coach hits player multiple times during match

A youth football coach from Georgia was caught on camera hitting a young player multiple times during a game.

A video clip, which has been viewed more than 3.1 million times since being posted on Twitter, shows the coach, named Gerrel Williams, of Savannah, hitting one of the players as the boy walked toward a group of players who huddled around the coach.

Authorities in Florida’s Osceola County said they have investigated the incident. Williams will face charges, they added.

The video shows Williams turning around to face away from the field, shouting a few words, then turning back around a few moments later and striking the player again, knocking him to the ground.

No room in the game for coaches like this. I hope he is arrested and banned for life. pic.twitter.com/1B0F2cLiqH

— Coach Reed (@CoachReed314) December 9, 2020

The child quickly stands up and the coach crouches down to say a few words to him before he grabs the player’s helmet, shakes it and pushes the boy away from the group.

“Get off the field!” Williams can be heard yelling in the video.

Savannah Police Department officials said in a Facebook post: “Over the past two days we have received numerous messages on social media regarding the actions of a Savannah-area youth football coach that was caught on video and has been shared widely on social media.

We thank you all for passing along this information for our detectives to look into. We want to assure everyone that we did immediately look into this and quickly learned that this incident occurred while the team was out of town.”

After seeing the video, investigators reached out to American Youth Football league officials who identified Williams as the coach and said he has been expelled from the league and is no longer allowed to attend any games.

On being contacted, the boy’s mother said she was aware of the incident but didn’t want to press charges.