Treadwell Gibbons has been banned from football for five years for his conduct in the FA Cup Final against North Village at the National Sports Centre last month.

The Dandy Town goalkeeper ran 70 yards from his goal area to get involved in an altercation between team-mate Zaire Burchall and Jason Davis, the North Village defender.

A challenge by Davis on Burchall escalated when Burchall swung an arm at Davis, who then retaliated.

All three players were sent off for violent conduct by Ronue Cann, the referee.

Burchall was served with a four-game suspension and Davis a two-match ban and a 12-month probation, but the Bermuda Football Association came down hardest on Gibbons for an unprovoked attack that left onlookers astounded.

“I won’t say anything until I have seen something official,” Wayne Campbell, the president of Western Stars Sports Club, Town’s parent club, said yesterday.

David Sabir, the BFA general secretary, was off the Island and not available for comment. A club source at Dandy Town called the ban on Gibbons “excessively harsh” and countered that a ban of six months would have been sufficient.

“Yes, because of the occasion, the FA Cup Final, he deserved a ban,” the source said. “I can see, probably, six months; he just pushed him.”

It is understood that Western stars are still considering disciplinary action against Gibbons. “We were waiting to see what this outcome would be,” the source said.

Gibbons landed himself in trouble while playing in Cup Match for St George’s last summer when he hotly disputed a dismissal to a catch at slip by Janeiro Tucker on the second day and had to be restrained.

St George’s subsequently imposed a suspended two-year Cup Match ban on Gibbons, who plays in the league for Cleveland.

The player immediately apologised to St George’s for his actions and ten days later made a public apology, promising to take steps to control his temper.

Gibbons’s is the second lengthy punishment handed down this season by the BFA, which banned Detroy Smith, of St David’s, for five years for spitting on referee Anthony Francis during the Friendship Trophy semi-final at Wellington Oval on Boxing Day last year.