Ken Ce­fas, a de­fend­er with Com­padres was yes­ter­day slapped with a five-year ban for strik­ing ref­er­ee Je­van Go­sine dur­ing a Cen­tral Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CFA) Hugo Fran­cis Memo­r­i­al Knock-Out Cup match on De­cem­ber 6 at Wood­ford Lodge, Ch­agua­nas.

But Com­padres man­ag­er/play­er Kevon Joseph is ar­gu­ing the pun­ish­ment was too harsh, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Ce­fas did not com­mit the in­fringe­ment for which he was pe­nalised.

Ce­fas, a cen­tral de­fend­er for the CFA Ram­s­ingh's FA Cup win­ners, came on as a sec­ond-half sub­sti­tu­tion in a match against Leeds FC and was al­most im­me­di­ate­ly cau­tioned by ref­er­ee Go­sine for a dan­ger­ous tack­le which cost him a yel­low card.

But with 11 min­utes left on the stop clock, Ce­fas was giv­en march­ing or­ders, ap­par­ent­ly for his sec­ond book­able of­fence for an ap­par­ent dan­ger­ous tack­le. How­ev­er, Ce­fas ap­peared an­gered by the ref­er­ee's call and al­leged­ly struck the ref­er­ee dis­lodg­ing the whis­tle out of his hands.

It is re­port­ed that ref­er­ee Go­sine al­so suf­fered a frac­tured in­dex fin­ger on his right hand.

The in­ci­dent brought a pre­ma­ture end to the game with Com­padres lead­ing 2-0. Guardian Sports un­der­stands that Go­sine lat­er made a re­port to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, be­fore seek­ing med­ical at­ten­tion at the near­by Med­ical In­sti­tu­tion. The mat­ter was lat­er sent to the Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee of the CFA.

Yes­ter­day, Joseph said he be­lieved the pun­ish­ment was too harsh as there were more se­vere in­ci­dents that took place in the League that went un­pun­ished. He said the pun­ish­ment was is­sued to the wrong play­er but Go­sine did not lis­ten to them.

"Ce­fas did not com­mit the foul and we tried telling the ref­er­ee that, but the play­er, how­ev­er, did re­act an­gri­ly by con­fronting the ref­er­ee to get his point across. It was by pure ac­ci­dent that as he (Ce­fas) raised his hand to make a point, it struck the ref­er­ee on the hand and in­jured his fin­ger. It all hap­pened by ac­ci­dent," Joseph told Guardian Sports, yes­ter­day.

Joseph who is al­so the Com­padres cap­tain, ques­tioned why the game was be­ing re­played last night when Ce­fas had al­ready re­ceived a hefty ban.

The four-man dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee com­pris­ing Col­in Par­tap (Chair­man), Ce­cil Coun­ty, Rek­ish Julips­ingh and Eu­stace Joseph ruled that Ce­fas be giv­en a five-year ban yes­ter­day, and is pre­vent­ed from play­ing any lo­cal foot­ball match­es.