NP- Football, Aussie Style

[David Morris]

http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=905348

Player Banned After Testicle Biting

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Former Sydney Swans Australian Rules player Peter 
Filandia was suspended for 10 matches on Wednesday after pleading guilty to 
biting an opponent's testicles during a game last week.

Filandia, 31, was playing for Port Melbourne against Springvale in the 
Australian Football League's feeder competition, the Victorian Football 
League (VFL).

St. Kilda AFL player Chad Davis, playing for Springvale, suffered a 
perforated scrotum and lost a small amount of blood, a club doctor told the 
VFL tribunal in Melbourne. He also needed a tetanus injection.

Filandia told the tribunal he could not breathe when he became entangled 
with Davis and bit him as a reflex action.

However, Filandia did not know which part of his opponent's body he had 
bitten, he said.

"It was a split-second decision," Filandia told reporters after the hearing.

Tribunal chairman Eddie Power ordered Filandia to undergo player counseling 
before resuming playing.

In a similar case last year, former rugby league international John Hopoate 
was banned by the Australian National Rugby League for 12 weeks after poking 
a finger up the backside of an opponent.

Hopoate was sacked by his club Wests-Tigers but joined rival club Northern 
Eagles in June 2001.




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