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Just when you thought you'd seen everything in football...

There were crazy scenes during a lower-league match in Brazil at the weekend, when a referee pulled out a gun after tempers boiled over.

The man in question, Gabriel Murta, was furious after getting some rough treatment from one of the teams, but his reaction is sure to lead to serious consequences.

As per the Mirror:

Gabriel Murta was kicked and slapped by players from lower-league Amantes de Bola, while the manager invaded the pitch demanding a red card, it is claimed. Murta, said to be a policeman by day, reacted by racing to the changing rooms and returning with a firearm.

Murta will now undergo psychological testing before the Minas Gerais Football Federation decides on a punishment.

The Referees' Association boss Giuliano Bozzano said:

The Minas Gerais Football Federation has already summonsed the referee and a psychologist to a meeting, and I'm going to talk with him today. On the basis of that conversation and his account of events and the results of the psychological assessment, I'll decide what if any measures to take. What's happened is obviously not a common occurrence, and I don't want to rush into anything. At the moment it happened, he's opted for getting his gun because in his view it was a question of controlling a situation.

Two days after the incident in question, the league said that they supported the gun-toting referee.

According to Globo Esporte (h/t USA Today's For The Win), Murta was beaten on the field and went to the locker room to get his gun to arrest the attacker.

Murta explained:

I took a slap to the face and a kick to the shin. I was pressured by several players and sought the gun in the locker room to arrest the (offending) player. But he ran, jumped the fence and ran away. I just wanted to defend myself and take action as a police officer. I was beaten as a citizen, he committed a crime.



The committee backed his explanation.

He acted in self-defense. Everyone knows the difficulty of amateur championships. The referees have already been through difficult situations. We have had several cases of referees being assaulted and even shot.

[YouTube, Mirror]