Melbourne City Down One More Player as Bouzanis Gets Suspended Five Games
Melbourne City, already decimated by injuries and suspensions, have another one on their hands, this time in goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis.
Bouzanis was suspended for five A-league games after repeatedly calling Melbourne Victory's Albanian striker Besart Berisha a "fucking gypsy". To some, the word "gypsy" is nothing more than a swear word, which is what Bouzanis thought of the word, and nothing else. But when you use it in context to someone like Berisha, it cuts deep. You see there are two types of gypsies in Albania; Roma or Egyptians. Both are discriminated against heavily, especially Roma. The perception is that every Roma engages in betting and stealing. So for someone of Albanian descent, the word "gypsy" means so much more than it would to someone of Aussie descent, like Bouzanis.
Bouzanis was not educated enough to know the power the word held to someone like Berisha. Once he found out, City chief executive Scott Munn said "there was an absolute shock of 'oh shit, I've overstepped the line'."
But according to committee chairman John Marshall SC, Bouzanis is lucky to only get the minimum suspension. The fact that Bouzanis went out of his way to meet Berisha on his own and apologize after finding out how much weight the word held was a definite positive sign, and that as well as him pledging to go into an awareness course held a lot of weight for the Aussie FA court. "I’m grateful to have been able to present my case and I’d like to apologise to Berisha and the football community. You’ll see from my actions that this will never happen again.” Said Bouzanis after his hearing.
Bouzanis' suspension adds on to Melbourne City's already large list of unavailable players for their upcoming match against Brisbane Roar, and further matches moving forward. Tim Cahill is serving a one-match ban for swearing, while captain Bruno Fornaroli, Muscat, Osama Malik, Luke Brattan, and Fernando Brandan are all serving one week suspensions for acclimating too many yellow cards. Defender Michael Jakobsen is out too due to injury.
