Club president banned for life for pinching referee's butt in Tunisia
The head of a soccer club in Tunisia has been banned for life by the country's federation for his behavior toward referees. And what was that behavior? Pinching a referee's butt, not once but twice.
Moncef Khemakhem, the president of CS Sfaxien, has been suspended "from any activity in football" for his behavior at a championship match last month, the Agence France-Presse reported on Friday. He was also fined about $13,000.
According to the federation, Khemakhem bit an assistant referee and pinched his behind to apparently intimidate the referee. The federation called it "dangerous and unsporting behavior" and "indecent assault." The federation hasn't specified if Khemakhem has the option to appeal the punishment.
Khemakhem, for his part, did not deny the incident and seemed to brag about it on television, according to reports. He told the TV network Wataniya that he "twice pinched the backside" of the linesman "to cheer him up because he lost the match." The incident occurred after Sfaxien beat Etoile de Sahel on March 1.
This isn't the first time someone in the world of soccer has gotten in trouble for a similar infraction, but this is the harshest punishment by far. Chilean defender Gonzalo Jara was banned from the rest of Copa America last year for inserting a finger into Edinson Cavani's bum.
While the punishments range in severity, doing anything to anyone's behind is going to bring some trouble, so just stop doing it, everyone. This should be pretty obvious, but: Leave everyone's butts alone. And if you've got a bingo card of weird reasons for soccer suspensions going, check off that "butt-pinching" square now.
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