Argentina soccer player sent off for harming dog

A football hits the back of a net. AP

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — An Argentine soccer player was expelled from a minor league game and fired from his team for mistreating a dog that wandered onto the field.

Fox Sports de Argentina broadcast images on Tuesday showing the player use both hands to grab the mid-size black-and-white dog by the collar and throw it toward the bleachers during the game. The dog struck a chain-link fence and fell down, but quickly got up and ran away.

The referee flashed a red penalty card at the player, Jose Gimenez, signaling his expulsion from the game between his Bella Vista team and the San Juan team in Tucuman province, which is about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) north of Buenos Aires.

Gimenez told the newspaper Gazeta de Tucuman that he later felt ashamed by what he did and said he had been fired from the team.

The player said he had a hard time trying to explain to his 3-year-old son “why I had choked a doggie on TV.”

He said he decided to deal with the dog because no one else was trying to get it off the field, “but it wasn’t my intention for this to occur.”

Still, Gimenez complained about the attention caused by the case. “So many things occur in soccer that do not have such repercussions,” he said.