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Home  » Sports » Sports Shorts: Footballer gets 50-year ban!

Sports Shorts: Footballer gets 50-year ban!

November 02, 2014 10:02 IST
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Referee Paolo Silvio Mazzoleni shows the red card

(Picture used here for representational purposes only) Referee Paolo Silvio Mazzoleni shows the red card to Nicola Leali of AC Cesena during the Serie A match. Photograph: Giuseppe Bellini/Getty Images

A Swiss amateur footballer has been handed a 50-year ban from the sport for kicking the ball at a referee and insulting him in a fourth-tier match, local media reported on Saturday.

Ricardo Ferreira, of Berne's Portugal Futebol Clube, received a lifetime ban after he kicked the ball at the official, sprayed him with water and verbally abused him at the end of a game during which he was an unused substitute.

The 28-year-old was banned indefinitely but, as the governing body's system requires an end-date for a suspension, officials entered 2064.

The reason for his long suspension is the player's disciplinary past, with several previous substantial bans for misbehaving.

"I am known to the referees and the federation and I expected one or two years. But 50? Football is my life," he told Blick magazine.

Algeria's Setif end long wait for Champions League title

Farid Mellouli of Algeria's Entente Sportive de Setif

Farid Mellouli of Algeria's Entente Sportive de Setif celebrates. Photograph: Louafi Larbi/Reuters

Entente Setif, of Algeria, won the African Champions League title for the first time in 26 years after beating AS Vita Club, of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on away goals following a 3-3 aggregate draw on Saturday.

The second leg of the final at the Mustapha Tchaker Stadium in Blida ended in a 1-1 draw, six days after the teams drew 2-2 in the opening game in Kinshasa.

Setif took the aggregate lead on Saturday four minutes into the second half through Sofiane Younes, who stretched his leg out at the back post to convert a crossfield pass from El Hadi Belameiri which had eluded the Vita defence.

But the Congolese visitors equalised just five minutes later through Lema Mabidi, who hit a thunderous shot from outside the penalty area to revive his club's chances.

Mabidi had also scored his club's two goals in the first leg of the final last weekend.

The equaliser ensured a nervy finish in which Vita were the more enterprising of the two teams as Setif employed time-wasting tactics and the tentative Algerian supporters began baying for the final whistle from the 75th minute onwards.

It was a second successive success over Congolese opposition this year for Setif, who had eliminated highly fancied TP Mazembe in the semi-finals.

The triumph continues a bumper year for Algeria, whose national team reached the second round of the World Cup in Brazil in June.

Vita's only previous success in the competition was in 1973 and they were runners-up in 1981, when it was still known as the African Champions Cup.

Entente Setif will now participate in next month's Club World Cup in neighbouring Morocco.

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Source: REUTERS
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