A waterpolo player who was recently suspended and fined for allegedly biting two players from an opposing team has filed a court injunction against the league organisers to halt the execution of the judgement in his appeal, which saw his fine increased and his suspension period tripled.

Ben Plumpton, who plays for San Giljan ASC filed the injunction against the Aquatic Sports Association of Malta, after a shock decision by the association’s appeals board to increase the four-game suspension and €1,000 fine originally imposed by the association’s disciplinary board, to 12 games and €1,270, respectively.

In the original decision, delivered on July 18, the Disciplinary Commissioner had cleared Plumpton of two of the charges, namely behaving in such a way that is likely to bring the sport into disrepute and behaving in such a way that is likely to give a bad example, and found him guilty of the offence of committing a violent action during a match, for which he received the four-game suspension, the maximum punishment allowed by the regulations.

The opposing team, Sliema ASC, who had filed the original complaint, did not appeal that decision, which subsequently became final.

The only appeal was one filed by Plumpton, who claimed to have been defending himself. “But in its decision handed down on July 19, the appeal board not only did not uphold the appeal, but (to everyone’s surprise) changed the Disciplinary Commissioner’s decision…and found Ben Plumpton guilty of charges which he had already been acquitted of and to which decision no appeal had been filed.”

In his appeal application, Plumpton’s lawyers, Carlos Bugeja and Charles Mercieca argued that the July 19 decision was both defective and procedurally irregular, and had resulted in “enormous prejudice” to the player, who will effectively have to miss the rest of the season.

They argued that the Board of Appeal had not increased the punishment, but had changed the original decision by finding guilt on charges from which he had already been conclusively acquitted.

It would have been bad enough had the board increased the punishment awarded for the offence subject to appeal, said the lawyers, but a reading of the decision immediately shows that the board had gone one further and reversed his acquittal for offences which were not even the subject of the appeal which the player had filed.

It was a well-established legal principle that an appellant cannot be placed in a worse position than the one he was in before he filed his appeal, said the lawyers, adding that the decision also breached one of the basic principles of natural justice - that both parties be allowed to have their say.

As during the hearing of the case, the board had stated that it would not be considering the offences Plumpton had been acquitted of, it had not heard any defence evidence or submissions about them.

In a decree handed down earlier on Monday, Madame Justice Josette Demicoli ordered that the ASA be notified and must file its reply within the next ten days.

The court, however, did not uphold the player’s request for a provisional injunction that would allow him to return to the pitch after August 3, on which date he would have served the original four game suspension, saying that it needed time to examine whether it had the power to halt the execution of a decision that had already been given. The case was adjourned to August 12.