England stopper Rachel Brown has successfully appealed over her sending off against Switzerland in their World Cup play-off second leg victory, reports BBC Sport. Brown was dismissed for allegedly pulling striker Ramona Bachmann's hair in a 3-2 win on 16 September which sealed a 5-2 aggregate triumph.

But Uefa has overturned the red card for violent conduct, meaning Brown will not miss World Cup games in June 2011.

"It would have been a total injustice if the ban had stood," said Brown.

"If I was ruled out of the first three games at the World Cup that might have meant being left out of the squad, which would have been devastating," added Brown.

Bachmann has apologised to Brown on her Facebook page after a YouTube clip of the incident was pasted on the Swiss player's Facebook wall.

"There have been thousands of comments about the YouTube clip and I'm told she's had stick off her own team-mates," said Brown.

"I hope she genuinely feels sorry for what she did because she's too good a player to be doing things like that."