Jordan Murrell Receives Additional Three-Game Ban

It’s been a rough nine days for Jordan Murrell: first, the Valour FC defender lost his cool after getting a red card for pushing aside a referee on August 5. After getting his marching orders, he then kicked a scorer’s table as he left the pitch and shoved a security guard on his way to the locker room. He immediately received an automatic three game suspension for violent conduct.

After fan uproar, Murrell stepped down as captain the next day amid speculation that a longer suspension would be handed down by Canada Soccer. Yesterday, Valour FC head coach and general manager Rob Gale confirmed to Winnipeg News reporter Devon Schewchuk that the former captain will now receive an additional three game ban on top of his existing suspension, which means his red card theatrics ultimately netted him a six game suspension all-told.

That’s three matches for his on-field antics, and three matches for his off-field antics.

The club played its first match without Murrell last week, which resulted in Valour FC picking up its first win since June 2. With the additional suspension, the 26-year-old defender will sit out for five more matches. He’ll be available on September 12, when the Winnipeg-based club plays Forge FC at IG Field.

Many fans had speculated that the 26-year-old could have potentially missed the fall season in its entirety, so some will view the six match suspension as Murrell getting off lightly.

The additional three game suspension came rather quickly, as it took much longer for the CSA to sort out the Bekker-Di Chiara incident.

The Canadian Premier League has been investigating rumours of racial remarks made by the Forge FC assistant coach for some two months now, but has yet to make any comments after announcing that it would be looking into the incident. It will be passing along the results of this investigation to the CSA.

Murrell’s month-long suspension has put Valour FC head coach and general manager Rob Gale in a tough spot: his club currently has six players out injured, so putting together a consistent lineup has proven difficult. Gale recently brought in 19-year-old defender Yohan Le Bourhis to help with this, with the youngster making his debut in the club’s recent win over York9 FC.

Source: Devon Shewchuk