Milan lawyer Leandro Cantamessa explains why they cannot appeal Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s one-match ban by providing audio evidence and the questions raised by the wording.
The Swede was sent off during the 3-1 win at Parma and today’s ban describes the reasons for his dismissal as ‘having uttered, with a provocative attitude, disrespectful criticism of the match official.’
Milan lawyer Leandro Cantamessa explains why they cannot appeal Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s one-match ban by providing audio evidence and the questions raised by the wording.
The Swede was sent off during the 3-1 win at Parma and today’s ban describes the reasons for his dismissal as ‘having uttered, with a provocative attitude, disrespectful criticism of the match official.’
This raised a few eyebrows, because these are not words that appear in the code of conduct, so it’s not entirely clear that what he did was technically a red card offence.
“The motivation given for the ban is curious, because it admits criticism is a right, but adds an adjective that isn’t really connected to that,” Cantamessa told PianetaMilan.it.
“Criticism must be contained, but the adjective used by the sporting judge does not refer to the need to be contained. From what Ibrahimovic said, his criticism seemed to be contained.
“There were no insults in the criticism. From what we heard, it is not remotely breaking those rules. Having said that, we don’t know what was written in the referee’s report.”
There is audio of Ibrahimovic saying to the referee in a sarcastic tone just before his red card: ‘You don’t care what I have to say? That seems strange…’
It has been suggested the referee misunderstood what Ibrahimovic said, but any appeal would be doomed to failure.
“Usually, video evidence is only allowed for exceptionally serious incidents or cases of mistaken identity,” continued Cantamessa.
“As it’s audio and not video, perhaps it could be used. However, because it’s a one-match ban, there simply isn’t time to provide the evidence and make an appeal.
“Milan would have to request an emergency appeal, which isn’t allowed for a one-match ban.”