Soccer

De Rossi hit with four-match ban

Italy's Daniele de Rossi has been banned for four matches and fined £4,500 for elbowing USA's Brian McBride

Fri Jun 23 2006 - 01:00

Italy's Daniele de Rossi has been banned for four matches and fined £4,500 for elbowing USA's Brian McBride. Fifa's disciplinary committee announced the decision today, and also imposed a three-match ban on the USA's Pablo Mastroeni for his red card in the same match.

It means de Rossi will miss the rest of the World Cup unless Italy make it to the final and recall the Roma midfielder.

Serbia and Montenegro's former Chelsea midfielder Mateja Kezman has been given a two-match ban after his red card for a wild lunge on Argentina's Javier Mascherano.

Meanwhile, Graham Poll's World Cup looks to be over after the referee blundered by giving one player three yellow cards in last night's match between Australia and Croatia.

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Poll, England's most high-profile match official, will have his performance analysed by Fifa's referees committee before they decide what action to take.

He booked Josip Simunic three times, only sending him off on the third occasion. Fifa president Sepp Blatter said referees were human and would make mistakes, but that this one was inexcusable.

He said he could not understand why neither of Poll's assistants nor the fourth official picked up on the error either, especially when they are wired up to communicate via radio headsets.

Blatter said: "I place my trust in the referees committee. I think they have the right amount of feeling to deal with this case. We should not forget that Graham Poll in his previous matches achieved fantastic things.

"Of course, we cannot excuse it but perhaps we should understand it. It simply should not have happened. We have had four officials and what is not understandable is that nobody intervened. I can't understand it. There are people there and on of them should have intervened and run on to the field and said, 'Stop, stop'."

Blatter added: "Naturally, referees are human beings and human beings make errors and we have to work against the quota of errors but total perfection does not exist and perhaps it's good because if perfection did exist there perhaps would not be enough discussion."