New Delhi:
The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) on Monday imposed a five-match ban on Real Madrid star forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who had lightly pushed the referee after being shown a red card during the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup against FC Barcelona.The ban was put on Ronaldo after he was sent-off in Real Madrid's 3-1 Spanish Super Cup victory over Barcelona.
The World Player of the Year received an automatic one-match ban for his dismissal on Sunday and an extra four games for his reaction towards referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea.
Ronaldo was also fined USD 4,500 and has 10 days to appeal the ban. Should any appeal fail, Ronaldo will miss Wednesday's Super Cup, second leg and Madrid's first four La Liga games of the season against Deportivo la Coruna, Valencia, Levante and Real Sociedad.
Madrid had already signaled their intent to appeal Ronaldo's second yellow card shown for diving eight minutes from time when he went down inside the area under pressure from Samuel Umtiti.
"Ronaldo's sending-off annoys me because even if it is not a penalty, the card is harsh," said Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane after the game. "We will see if we can do something so that he is available on Wednesday."
Ronaldo was only on the field for 24 minutes as he was introduced as a second-half substitute and fired into the top corner 10 minutes from time to give Madrid a 2-1 lead.
He received his first yellow card for removing his shirt in celebration before being shown the 10th red card of his career two minutes later.
"Once shown the red card, said player (Ronaldo) pushed me lightly as a sign of his disapproval," de Burgos Bengoetxea wrote in his referee's report.
According to the RFEF's rules, such offences are met witha suspension of anything between four and 12 games, but previous cases also resulted in four-game bans.
With PTI inputs
