Gold Coast’s Pantelidis cops five-match ban

Gold Coast United’s Steve Pantelidis has copped a five match ban after being found guilty of violent conduct in the win over Melbourne Victory on Friday.

The independent Match Review panel found that the 25-year old had committed the offence of "Assault on a Player (e.g. violent conduct when not challenging for the ball)" against Robbie Kruse and proposed a sanction of five matches. This is three additional matches to the two match minimum sanction for such an offence.

Pantelidis has until 1:00pm (AEDT) tomorrow to accept the proposed sanction or refer the matter to a hearing by the FFA Disciplinary Committee.

If Pantelidis decides to challenge the ban and is unsuccessful, he will be out of action until the third week of the finals if United make it that far.