Italian Football Coach Banned For Head-butting Rival At End Of Serie C Match (Video)

Italian Serie C team Lucchese coach Giancarlo Favarin has been slapped with a five-month ban by the Serie C disciplinary tribunal after he head-butted a member of the opposing team's staff. He also told a player to break an opponent's legs.

Footage of the match showed the shaven-headed Favarin knocking the daylights out of Gaetano Mancino, assistant coach of rivals Alessandria, with a headbutt during a brawl at the end of a 2-2 draw between their teams on Sunday.

Mancino was caught off-balance and knocked to the ground by the blow.

The Italian manager, 60, lost his cool in the sixth minute of the added time in the match even as his team had risen from a 2-0 deficit to make it 2-2 in the 93rd minute of the match.

Serie C's disciplinary tribunal said in a statement that Favarin made "blasphemous remarks" during the match and "invited his own player to 'break the legs' of an opponent."

He also "began a slanging match with a member of the opposing team's staff at the peak of which he hit the latter with a violent head butt, making him fall to the ground ".

Mancino, meanwhile, was given a two-match ban for "offensive and provocative behaviour towards the coach of the rival team during the match."

Favarin has now come out and apologised for his behaviour but mentioned that he had suffered provocations from the beginning of the game.

"I have always believed in football as a driver of principles and values for which I have always maintained attitudes and healthy behaviors. For this reason, today, I'm apologizing to everyone, opponents, fans and society for yesterday's serious and unjustified, which has nothing to do with football and sport.

"Despite being experiencing a moment of particular nervous stress, for the months experienced with difficulty and for the provocations suffered from the beginning of the game, never ever this unfortunate episode, of which I take every responsibility, should have occurred," Favarin apologised on the club's official Facebook page.

The ban on Favarin will last till June 30, 2019, which means he will miss the rest of the season.

 

Watch the video below: