Mexican referee Fernando Hernandez will be suspended for 12 matches after kneeing a player in the groin during a Liga MX match between America and Leon.
Hernandez kneed León midfielder Lucas Romero as he and his teammates surrounded the referee during Sunday’s 2-2 draw, demanding a VAR check for America to equalise.
In a bad mood, both coaches were fired after a brawl that left Léon’s boss Nicolas Larcamon with a torn shirt and six yellow cards in a single 10-minute period in the second half.
Any umpires who want to replicate Hernandez’s methods of dealing with dissenting players may have to think twice as the league’s disciplinary committee penalizes the official with a lengthy ban.
After widely shared footage showed Hernandez kneeling Romero, giving him a yellow card, the León man called the incident a “misunderstanding”.
“Judges are human, they can make mistakes many times, and those mistakes eventually lead to what happened, to a lot of misunderstandings,” he told the Mexican TV channel TUDN.
Hernandez has since apologized to Romero and said he would “never attack him or any other player”, promising to accept the punishment handed down by the league’s disciplinary committee.