World Football governing body, FIFA, have rejected Uruguay and Liverpool striker Luis Suarez’s appeal against a four-month ban from all football-related activities for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini.
FIFA’s Appeal Committee confirmed, Thursday, the decision rendered by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee on June 25, 2014 in its entirety which also banned Suarez for nine international matches after the incident at the World Cup in Brazil.
FIFA said that the terms of the decision taken by its Appeal Committee were communicated to the player and the Uruguayan FA who had described the ruling as an “excessive decision” for which “there was not enough evidence”.
Should Suarez and the Uruguayan FA decide to appeal further, ordinarily the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) would sit and hear the matter while the player adheres to the terms of his ban.
Under the terms of the suspension, Suarez cannot train with his club and is prohibited from entering the confines of any stadium, although players’ union Fifpro argue the details “lack clarity”.
However, as the World Cup is still ongoing, they could apply to the CAS ‘ad-hoc’ division, which exists for the duration of the tournament to hear matters such as this.
The ad-hoc division could suspend the sanctions pending a full hearing later in the year, allowing Suarez to play and take part in “football related activities” in the meantime.
Suarez was banned for 10 games for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic during a Premier League match in 2013 and was also suspended for seven games for biting PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax in 2010.
With this latest ban, Suarez would have missed 32 games through four separate bans since arriving at Liverpool in 2011.
The ban is the biggest in World Cup history, beating the eight games given to Italy’s Mauro Tassotti for elbowing Spain’s Luis Enrique in 1994.
