Matthew Breeze sent the Brazilian off in the 29th minute of the match for an R3 offence, and television replays suggested the referee was spot on with his decision.

While Melbourne were able to get away with a win, thanks to Kevin Muscat's 62nd-minute goal, Victory could be without Ney Fabiano for a long time, given Perth Glory's Dino Djulbic was given a five-week ban for a lesser offence against Sydney in Round 3.

Melbourne coach Ernie Merrick refused to comment on the incident, which could see him without his key attacking player for a substantial part of the season.

Adelaide's skipper Travis Dodd was only metres away when the incident happened, but all he saw was an ugly exchange of words.

Aurelio Vidmar, Adelaide's coach, said that if Ney Fabiano had spat at his player then he had copped his right whack, but he was more concerned about two other key decisions.

He felt a first-half foul on his midfielder Paul Reid was in the box and should have been a penalty while he had doubts over whether Sasa Ognenvski's tackle on Archie Thompson warranted the penalty which led to the sole goal.

Vidmar said: "It looked pretty soft to me. I would have thought that the first one was in the box, and the tackle for the penalty was pretty gentle.

“We had some good chances tonight, there’s no question about that but they didn’t go in. If they did, we would be talking about something else. We really need to brush up in front of goal and right around the park.

“We now need to pick ourselves up, mentally and physically. We need people to stand up because this upcoming period will be tough and only the strong will survive."