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Miguel Britos suspended three matches over headbutt

The Napoli defender got off easy after his tussle with Alvaro Morata.

Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images

On Saturday, Miguel Britos lost his mind at the end of the Napoli match against Juventus. In stoppage time, he lashed out at Alvaro Morata, headbutting the Spanish striker and earning himself a red card in the process -- and giving away a penalty, since they were in Napoli's penalty area.

The embarrassment of the penalty pales in comparison to the rest of what Britos did, though, and now he's being punished by the league for it. Among the various items in the weekly report from the Lega Serie A disciplinary committee, the headline was that Britos has been handed a three match suspension.

Wait, three matches?

Yes, Britos has, somehow, escaped further punishment beyond the standard three for violent conduct. Many people expected him to get a further ban based on the flagrant and not-in-the-run-of-play nature of, well, headbutting someone, but apparently the disciplinary committee felt that headbutting someone in the face for no apparent reason was no different than a studs-up tackle. That's ... something. Maybe his vague, two-sentence written apology struck a chord with someone.

Because there's only one more match this season, Britos will serve the last two matches at the beginning of next season. That is assuming, of course, that he's still in Serie A, since his place at Napoli is far from assured, even before he tried to rearrange Morata's face with his forehead.