Major blow for amateur boxer Adam Abdallah who broke soccer ref’s jaw

A boxer who left a soccer referee with a broken jaw and four missing teeth in a wild brawl has copped a major loss in court.

An amateur boxer who was jailed for breaking a soccer referee’s jaw and leaving him with four missing teeth in a wild brawl has failed in his push for a lighter sentence.

Adam Abdallah, 26, attacked soccer referee Khodr Yaghi following a match at Padstow Oval in southwestern Sydney in April 2023.

The violent confrontation was sparked after Abdallah insulted the referee and said words to the effect of “f**k your mum and your sister”, according to the agreed facts.

Mr Yaghi struck him with the lineman’s flag pole and Abdallah fell before getting back to his feet to continue aggressively yelling at the referee.

Abdallah then knocked Mr Yaghi to the ground, where he punched and kicked the referee multiple times.

Mr Yaghi was left with a broken jaw and four missing teeth after Abdallah landed multiple blows to his face, requiring surgery to insert multiple plates in his jaw.

Video of the attack was widely shared on social media in the aftermath.

Adam Abdallah was sentenced to two years and three months in jail following the attack. Picture: NewsWire / Ben Symons

Video of Abdallah attacking Khodr Yaghi was widely circulated. Picture: NewsWire

The amateur boxer initially pleaded not guilty to reckless grievous bodily harm and was granted bail in May 2023 after an extended version of the viral video appeared to show he’d been attacked first.

He later changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced to two years and three months behind bars in February with a non-parole period of one year and two months.

He will be eligible for parole in March 2026.

Abdallah applied to appeal his sentence in the Court of Criminal Appeal, with his defence lawyer Thomas Woods in May telling the court his client was seeking an intensive corrections order that would allow him to serve time in the community as opposed to in jail.

The Grounds of Appeal argued the sentencing judge had erred in finding Mr Yaghi’s “provocative conduct” didn’t significantly mitigate Abdallah’s conduct, and also by failing to address a submission to reduce the penalty following his guilty plea.

Abdallah submitted in his appeal that Mr Yaghi’s provocation didn’t need to be “extreme” to operate as a mitigating factor, and that the referee’s use of the linesman flag to strike him should’ve been considered as “significant provocation”.

Abdallah initially pleaded not guilty before later changing his plea to guilty. Picture: Supplied

Abdallah appealed for a lighter sentence. Picture: Supplied

He argued Mr Yaghi’s provocation was a substantial cause for Abdallah’s “loss of control and his offending conduct”, and that if the judge found Mr Yaghi’s conduct was significant, he would have had a lesser sentence, as the objective seriousness of his offence would have been lower.

However, Justice Robertson Wright dismissed the appeal on Friday morning

In his judgment, Justice Wright supported the sentencing judge’s finding that Mr Yaghi’s provocative behaviour was towards the lower end of objective seriousness and wasn’t “extreme”.

He noted Abdallah and Mr Yaghi had also been separated for minutes before the boxer “decided to return a considerable distance and attack the victim”. 

“In these circumstances, the applicant’s reaction to the victim’s conduct was less attributable to an instinctive or ill thought-out response in the heat of the moment than would have been the case if the reaction had occurred immediately after the provocation,” Justice Wright wrote in his judgment.

He therefore rejected Abdallah’s first ground of appeal, concluding it was “well open” to the sentencing judge to conclude Mr Yaghi’s provocation wasn’t enough to mitigate Abdallah’s sentence, or the objective seriousness of his offending “to any significant extent”.

Justice Wright also threw out the second ground of appeal, finding the sentencing judge had dealt with Mr Abdallah’s submission to reduce his penalty after the guilty plea “adequately”.

Justices Jeremy Kirk and David Davies agreed with Justice Wright’s decision to quash the appeal.

Originally published as Major blow for amateur boxer Adam Abdallah who broke soccer ref’s jaw