Sevilla defender Javi Navarro was handed out a five match suspension this week for the much commented incident a coupe of weekends ago when he left Mallorca midfielder Arango in hospital. Although many people feel that the ban is not big enough, Navarro's club are indignant, claiming that the whole thing was an unfortunate accident and the ban should never have been applied. They also feel that they are once again being treated unfairly by the Federation, as was the case some time ago when they had to close their ground due to crowd trouble, whereas Barcelona have (so far at least) managed to avoid a two match ban from over a year ago by taking the matter to court (which is against FIFA rules).

The appeals committee and the CEDD studied the case this week and agreed with Sevilla's request to ask for the medical records on Arango, but both refused to put the ban on hold in the meantime (the usual procedure when a case is being investigated). As a result Navarro had to sit out the game at Espanyol this weekend, and may well have served out the whole suspension before the issue is decided. Club president José María del Nido therefore announced that they will follow the example of Barça (and also Athletic Bilbao on the Gurpegui case) and go to the Spanish courts to ask them to intervene. In the meantime it appears that Navarro injured himself in training and could in any case be out for a month. The fun and games are just beginning!

Other than that it was a quiet week, with only one red card on Saturday when Numancia's Miguel Cedrún picked up two booking in the last five minutes of the game against Atlético. Nine players will be missing next weekend's games though after completing the yellow card cycle, including Ito (Espanyol), Miguel Angel (Málaga), Puñal (Osasuna) and Anderson Silva (Racing) with ten bookings each, and Ibagaza (Atlético), Puyol (Barcelona), Varela (Betis), Pereyra (Mallorca) and Juan Carlos Moreno (Numancia) with five. (12.04.05)

PS. The disciplinary committee cancelled the red card shown to Rivas last weekend by Pino Zamorano after he gave away a penalty on Barcelona's Deco, allowing the Betis defender to play this Sunday.