Italian manager gets five-month ban for horrendous headbutt on opposition coach

The Serie C disciplinary tribunal handed the AS Lucchese coach the ban after the incident on Sunday.

Giancarlo Favarin, the head coach of Serie C side AS Lucchese, has been handed a five-month ban from the sidelines after headbutting the assistant manager of rivals Alessandria, Gaetano Mancino. The headbutt took place in the final minutes of injury time in the 2-2 draw between Lucchese and Alessandria on Sunday last week, a game in which Lucchese had come back from 2-0 down to draw level. In the video clip below, Favarin can be seen shouting at Mancino before unleashing an extremely powerful headbutt in his direction. Mancino then goes down in what looks like immense pain while holding his face. The 60-year-old coach claimed that he had lost his temper after the opposition coach had offended him and spit at him, though this version of events was not one which the tribunal agreed with. The disciplinary tribunal said in a statement that he made "blasphemous remarks" throughout and "invited his own player to 'break the legs' of an opponent". https://twitter.com/James_Dart/status/1090171740754460673