Vukovic eyes Di Canio defence to beat ban

THE appeal against Danny Vukovic's 15-month ban for striking referee Mark Shield is set to centre on examples from around the world of players receiving far more lenient punishments for similar offences.

And at the top of the list is Italian star Paolo Di Canio's suspension of just 11 matches for pushing referee Paul Alcock to the ground after being shown a red card while playing for Sheffield Wednesday against Arsenal in an English Premier League game in 1998.

The independent match review panel outed Vukovic for 15 months - including a six-month suspended term - on Monday, as a result of his aggressively striking Shield's right arm with his right hand in the dying stages of Sunday's grand final. Central Coast players had raced to Shield to complain over his non-awarding of what replays showed should have been a Mariners penalty for a handball by Newcastle replacement James Holland in the game the Newcastle Jets won 1-0.

Mariners executive chairman Lyall Gorman yesterday met Vukovic, the player's manager, Leo Karis, and legal counsel before announcing Vukovic would lodge an appeal against the severity of the punishment.

"We have a pathway in place," Gorman said. "We believe there is an opportunity to present some facts that the independent tribunal wasn't privy to. We hope these facts will support a reduction in penalty. Danny is anxious and full of remorse. He regrets the incident. I think you know it's out of character for him. The club is of the view that the severity of the sanction for such a player of his record is excessive, despite the serious nature of the charge. We will be lodging an appeal this week and hope to have a hearing early next week. We hope the penalty will be reduced."

The appeal will be heard by the disciplinary committee. If Vukovic is not satisfied after that hearing, his last avenue will be the appeals committee. Gorman said Vukovic had apologised to Shield immediately after the game and had followed that up with written apologies to the referee, Football Federation Australia's referees manager and the FFA. Karis, when asked whether Vukovic's legal team was optimistic about the chances of getting a reduction upon appeal, replied: "We wouldn't be going down this path if we didn't think it was worthwhile. The legal advice is that we should go down this path."

The FFA will not formally extend Vukovic's ban to cover national team football while it awaits the result of his appeal, but if the ban is unchanged, it is expected to apply to the national team as well.