Rugby - Attoub ban:David Attoub has been hit with a massive 70-week ban for gouging Ulster's Stephen Ferris. The Stade Francais prop was found guilty of the offence last week but his sanction was only made public this morning.
The ban, one of the biggest in European rugby history for a gouging offence, will keep the 28-year-old out of the game until April 22nd, 2011 although Stade Francais president Max Guazzini has already signalled his intention to lodge an appeal.
When Ulster met Stade at Ravenhill last month, a match Ulster won, Attoub was adjudged to have gouged Ferris in an incident that also involved the visiting scrumhalf Julien Dupuy. Dupuy has already received a 23 week suspension with an ERC disciplinary hearing ruling that Attoub’s offence was the more serious.
Indeed, Judge Jeff Blackett, the independent judicial officer who took charge of the hearing, described the incident as “the worst act of contact with the eyes that I have had to deal with: it is a case of deliberate eye gouging”.
The fact that this was not Attoub’s first offence – the former French international previously served a ban for gouging in the 2004/2005 season - and pleaded not guilty influenced the severity of the sanction imposed.
Attoub’s contention that photographs of the incident had been digitally altered and could not be relied upon as evidence as they were taken from a distance of 70 metres was dismissed by the hearing.
Judge Jeff Blackett, the independent judicial officer who took charge of the hearing, was scathing in the written judgement, accusing the Stade player of evasiveness throughout and of being “less than truthful” in his evidence.
In his evidence, Ferris told how he found himself trapped at the bottom of a ruck where fingers were pushed into both of his eyes.
A finger then went firmly and deeply into his right eye and remained there for a few seconds. The contact was very strong and extremely painful, Ferris explained, and was much worse than the earlier contact made by Dupuy.
“It was someone trying to drive a finger as hard as he could into my eye socket,” Ferris said.
Attoub maintained that he had been trying to free himself from the ruck and push himself up from the ground. When shown a photograph of his middle finger pushing into Ferris’s right eye, he was unable to explain how it could have happened.
“I do not know exactly where that arm was,” he said. “In my head my focus was to get out of that action. I am very sorry for what happened in the end.”
When asked whether it was possible he made contact with Ferris’s eye, he answered: “I do not know, I am sorry I am not able to answer that question.”
Delivering his verdict, Blackett did not pull any punches.
“His (Attoub’s) account skated over the period when his hand was clearly near and on Ferris’s face and he declined to explain precisely what he was doing other than trying to move away from where he was,” he wrote.
“When he was shown the incriminating photographs and asked to explain what he saw or what was happening he replied that he did not know. He refused to accept the possibility that his finger was in the eye.
“It was this evasiveness which satisfied me that his account was less than truthful and that he knew that he had deliberately attacked the eyes of an opponent but was trying to evade responsibility.”
Stade coach Jacques Delmas reiterated his club's intention to appeal Attoub's ban, the second longest sanction for gouging in the professional era.
"Everybody in the team is very affected by this," Delmas said. "They (ERC) judged an intention rather than a gesture. With them, it's still the Hundred Years War."
Only Richard Nones of Colomiers has been hit with a longer gouging ban than Attoub, receiving his two-year punishment in 1999 following a Heineken Cup game against Pontypridd.
In 2007, Dylan Hartley of Northampton was suspended for 26 weeks while Dupuy was banned for 24 weeks after he was also found guilty of gouging Ferris last month. His ban was reduced to 23 weeks on appeal.
