Stade Francais angrily denounced the six-month eye-gouging ban handed down to scrumhalf Julien Dupuy on Friday as “anti-French” and “excessive.”
French international Dupuy received the season-ending, 24-week ban for eye-gouging Ulster flanker Stephen Ferris during the Irish province’s 23-13 European Cup win over the Paris-based club in Belfast last Saturday.
The decision by the Dublin-based European Rugby Cup (ERC) disciplinary hearing was slammed by Stade president Max Guazzini.
PHOTO: AFP
“It’s excessive, very political and anti-French,” Guazzini said from Brussels where the two sides were to meet again in the reverse fixture yesterday. “The ERC wanted to make an example of a symbolic player of Stade Francais and of the French team, which has never had a disciplinary problem. It’s not normal that a private organization in Ireland prevents a club employee from working, from playing. It is we who pay him.”
French national coach Marc Lievremont wants Stade to appeal the ban.
“We expected the worse and the worse thing has happened to Julien because six months is huge,” Lievremont said. “I hope there is an appeal and that the ban is replaced by something more reasonable.”
Although Dupuy and his club apologized for his actions, officials handed down a severe punishment for what is regarded as one of the worst offenses a player can commit and which carries a maximum three-year ban.
Dupuy, whose ban will end on June 3, has the right to appeal the sanction that will also rule him out of the Six Nations.
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