FIFA have suspended Uruguay forward Luis Suárez for nine matches plus four months without any football related activity.
The governing body found the 27 year-old guilty of biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini in Tuesday’s decisive Group D encounter, which Uruguay went on to win 1-0.
In a statement on their official website, FIFA noted that “such behaviour cannot be tolerated on any football pitch” and outlined their punishment and reasoning for it:
“The player Luis Suárez is regarded as having breached art. 48 par. 1 lit. d of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (FDC) (assault), and art. 57 of the FDC (an act of unsporting behaviour towards another player).
– The player Luis Suárez is to be suspended for nine (9) official matches. The first match of this suspension is to be served in the upcoming FIFA World Cup™ fixture between Colombia and Uruguay on 28 June 2014. The remaining match suspensions shall be served in Uruguay’s next FIFA World Cup match(es), as long as the team qualifies, and/or in the representative team’s subsequent official matches in accordance with art. 38 par. 2a) of the FDC.
– The player Luis Suárez is banned from taking part in any kind of football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) for a period of four (4) months in accordance with art. 22 of the FDC.
– The player Luis Suárez is ordered to pay a fine in the amount of CHF 100,000.”
Suárez’ ban starts with Saturday’s Round of 16 clash with Colombia and continues until Uruguay have played a further eight competitive matches. That will likely exclude him from the 2015 Copa América – held in Chile – that starts next June.
The four month ban from football-related activity rules him out of nine Premier League matches for Liverpool, which includes ties against Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Everton, as well as the start of the UEFA Champions League. He can still however, transfer to another club, but the punishment would still be relivant.
The bite on Chiellini is the third such incident involving Suárez. In 2007, when playing for Ajax, he was handed a seven match ban for biting then PSV midfielder Otman Bakkal, while in 2013 he was banned for ten matches after a similar assault on Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanović.
