A SOCCER player who head-butted a referee has been kicked out of football indefinitely.

Martin Smith, from Maidstone, has been banned from all football with no chance of a review by the Kent County Football Association for at least five years, said KCFA chief executive Keith Masters. Smith was also fined £200.

Smith broke referee Derek Goddard’s nose when he head-butted him after he had played for Parkwood Jupitors in a Maidstone & Mid-Kent Sunday League match in January.

Bill Stoneham, Kent Referees Association representative on the KCFA, said the case was typical of the increasing amount of physical and verbal abuse directed at referees.

“It’s becoming more vicious and referees are being pilloried more and more, particularly verbally,” he said. He stressed that severe sanctions taken by the KCFA helped in efforts to try to clamp down on violence.