Video: Italian rugby player banned three years for violent hit on female ref

Italian rugby player Bruno Andres Doglioli has been banned from the sport for three years after leveling a female referee with a brutal hit, the Italian Rugby Federation announced Thursday. 

The play occurred during a game in Italy’s top division on Sunday, with Dogioli’s Rangers Rugby Vicenza team taking on Padua. Doglioli clotheslined the referee, Maria Beatrice Benvenuti, who was reportedly taken to a hospital and diagnosed with whiplash. 

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The FIR condemned Doglioli’s actions as “a deliberate act of violence.” The three year ban is the longest the federation has handed out in two decades.