Benfica midfielder Augustin Binya has been banned for six UEFA matches following his red card for a high challenge on Scott Brown in a recent Champions League match against Celtic. This is the correct decision on what can truly be described using that oft-thrown around term — horror tackle. As we showed in an earlier post, Binya was clearly looking to inflict some hurt on Brown and was successful in doing so. Six games seems a sufficient punishment for this sort of violent act.

Benfica can appeal against the decision. However, if they are unsuccessful Binya will miss Benfica’s remaining Champions League Group D matches against AC Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk. Benfica will then have to cope without Binya for their next four matches in Europe, which could be in the latter stages of this season’s Champions League or UEFA Cup. The ban will also carry over to future seasons if, as seems likely, Benfica finish bottom of Group D and bow out of Europe for this campaign.

I sincerely hope that Benfica’s Augustin Binya is hit with a harsh ban for his horror tackle on Celtic’s Scott Brown. Actually, to term it a tackle is an injustice. It really was nothing more than an assault and attempt to injure Brown. The closest I’ve seen to this is when Manchester United’s Roy Keane tried to do in Alf Inge Haaland. There was a bit of history to that one as Keane felt Haaland had taunted him when he was injured in a match in 1997 when Haaland was with Leeds. Keane waited until 2001 to seek his revenge. The Binya tackle seemed to appear out of frustration rather than revenge as in Keane’s case. I’ve posted links to both videos so that you can compare for yourself.

For the record, both incidents are distasteful and have no place in the game. Keane ended up being banned for eight matches after admitting that he intended to hurt Haaland. Martin Hansson, the Swedish referee, showed Binya a straight red card, and was quoted as saying:

“I couldn’t say it was the worst tackle I’ve ever seen because I’ve refereed a lot of matches and seen a lot of bad challenges,” Hansson said. “But it is certainly one of the worst tackles and there is no doubt in my mind it fully merited a straight red card.”

Uefa have confirmed they will investigate the tackle which saw Binya catch Brown just beneath his right knee.

Binya:

Keane: