Melbourne City keeper Dean Bouzanis has received the minimum five match suspension, after the FFA Disciplinary and Ethics Committee determined that Bouzanis had committed the offence of using racially discriminatory language , late in the derby game between Melbourne City and Melbourne Victory.
Cameras and microphones captured Bouzanis calling Victory striker Beshart Berisha an “f***ing Gypsy” in the aftermath of a late, controversial winner which decided the match in Victory’s favour.
Tensions between the two players were high throughout the match. They had clashed earlier in the match with Bouzanis saving a Berisha penalty followed by a Berisha goal.
The day after the match, Melbourne City moved quickly to make a public apology for the slur, pledging that Bouzanis would undertake an education program. Bouzanis also met Berisha on Tuesday evening to give him a personal apology.
At the hearing on Wednesday evening in Sydney, Bouzanis reportedly tried to persuade the FFA disciplinary Committee to reduce the suspension on the grounds that, on the night, he didn’t understand the racial undertones of the Gypsy slur he directed at Victory’s Albanian born striker.
According to City CEO Scott Munn, who attended Bouzanis’s hearing, the keeper told him in the dressing room after the match, that ‘Gypsy’ was similar in meaning to ‘bogan’ and that he wasn’t aware of the racist meaning of the slur.
Despite City’s attempts to have the suspension reduced, FFA Disciplinary Committee chair John Marshall SC said afterwards that the keeper should consider himself fortunate that he received the minimum sentence of five matches warning him that he couldn’t again expect such leniency should he re-offend.
Bouzanis spoke publicly after the hearing saying, “I’m grateful to have been able to present my case and I’d like to apologise to Berisha and the football community. You’ll see from my actions that this will never happen again.”
Bouzanis is expected to be replaced by veteran Thomas Sorensen, the player he has kept on the sidelines since ironically Sorensen was suspended in the opening match of the season.
Bouzanis’s absence couldn’t have come at a worse time for City ahead of this week’s home match against Brisbane Roar. City will also be without Tim Cahill, Bruno Fornaroli, Manny Muscat, Osama Malak, Luke Brattan and Fernando Brandan, all suspended, and central defender Michael Jakobsen out injured.