Handball ref who dropped his pants sent home from World Championships

The men's handball World Championship is currently taking place in Sweden with 24 countries battling it out to lift the title held by France.

The tournament is due to run until the end of January, but for one man it has all ended rather abruptly - and it wasn't one of the players.

France's Olympic gold-winning men's handball team, Beijing, 2008 (from Wikipedia, author Jmex60)

As The Local, an English-language online news site based in Sweden, reported, one of the referees for the tournament has been banned after he exposed himself to staff at the hotel in which he was staying in Göteborg, a city on the western coast of the country.

He was apparently arrested last Thursday evening after hotel cleaners alleged he had exposed himself in front of them.

Police detained him overnight for questioning, says The Local, on "suspicion of sexual molestation", but no charges were brought and he was released the following morning.

When the sport's governing body, the International Handball Federation (IHF), got wind of what had happened it immediately took action.

It issued a statement on its website saying that it had suspended the man from the tournament and had asked local authorities for more details on the incident before it would decide what further measures to take.

Neither the name nor the nationality of the man who apparently felt the need to dangle his privates in public has been released, according to Agence France Presse,

But TV4 news website nyhetskanalen.se reported that he had been spotted on Friday travelling to the Danish capital Copenhagen to take a flight back home.

The 2011 men's handball World Championship is the 22nd time the tournament has been held since 1938.

France are the current Olympic, World and European champions.