Football violence.. a new low?

I was sitting on the sofa this evening flicking through the channels and waiting for the Republic of Ireland v San Marino match to start.

Over on Setanta there was a highlights programme from the Dutch league. I wasn't paying much attention to the game until something pretty strange happened.

Two of the players got into a bit of a heated discussion and they did that whole forehead-to-forehead thing. Then one of them tried to bite the other on the face. It was bizarre.

I think the match happened at the weekend so it's not new news but nonetheless it was a pretty bizarre thing to do. In my lifetime I've seen players headbutt opponents, I've seen one player pinch another player's testicles, I've seen a player jump into the crowd and attack an abusive fan. Until today I'd never seen a player try to bite the face of another.

Now some reports from the game suggest that it wasn't an attempted bite. I'm not going to say anything other than from the views I saw of the incident the motion of the player towards the other was like lining up for a bite.

Shame on this so-called sportsman.

In fairness the club has sanctioned the guy for doing this and the guy in question, Sebastien Sansoni, has apologised and seems genuinely shocked by his own behaviour.

What makes sports people do crazy stuff like this? Is it really the heat of battle or is it something else?