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US star slapped with three-game ban for head stomp

By AAP Newswire

May 20, 2025

United States centre Alev Kelter has been banned for three matches for her ugly head stomp on her Wallaroos opposite during Australia's Pacific Four win in Canberra.

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The former ice hockey and soccer player was sent off late in the Wallaroos' 27-19 win, which referee Aimee Barrett-Theron labelled "thuggery".

A three-time Olympian, winning bronze for the American sevens team in Paris last year, Kelter took a hit-up and then stamped repeatedly with her boot on Georgina Friedrichs' head, who was clinging to her other leg.

Kelter appeared before an independent disciplinary committee on Tuesday in New Zealand, where the US will face the Black Ferns in the next round.

Chaired by Michael Heron KC (New Zealand) and former international players Becky Essex (England) and Ofisa Tonu'u (New Zealand), Kelter accepted she had committed an act of foul play and the referee's decision to award a red card was correct.

The committee, however, accepted Kelter's evidence she did not intend to contact the head and her act was reckless rather than deliberate.

The three-game ban rules her out of the last round of the Pacific Four and two club games with her Bay Breakers team back in the USA.