adminBARCELONA striker Luis Suarez has expressed his relief at training with new team-mates for the first time, declaring he feels “like a footballer again”.The Uruguay forward was able to train with Barca yesterday morning after the Court of Arbitration for Sport relaxed the “excessive” elements of the four-month ban incurred for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup.
“I’m very happy to feel like a footballer again and to be with my team-mates,” Suarez told the club’s official website.
“I was really looking forward to starting. The situation made me feel very uncomfortable. I’m paying for an error I committed and have apologised for, but it needs to be forgotten about. Now I have to think about the future, which is Barcelona, the club I dreamed about playing for.”
Suarez completed a £75 million move to the Catalans in July but had been forced to train away from his team-mates due to the ban.
The 27-year-old failed in his appeal to have the entire suspension — covering “all football-related activity” — removed, but was permitted to train and play in friendlies for club and country after the CAS ruled the punishment was overly harsh.
Suarez will be presented in front of Barca fans at the Nou Camp before Monday’s friendly against Mexican side Leon, when he could make his debut for the Blaugrana.
However, he will have to wait until the weekend of October 25 to make his competitive debut — the weekend of the first Clasico of the 2014-15 Primera Division campaign against arch-rivals Real Madrid at the Bernabeu.
“Now I have to wait to play again, to meet the fans and feel what it’s like to play at the Nou Camp,” Suarez added.
“I’m very grateful to the club for everything they have done for me in the past few weeks and days. They have treated me very well and I’m grateful to them because I’ve completed a dream, which is to play for Barcelona.”
The CAS felt Suarez’s ban broadly fitted the crime — having “committed an act of assault” — but believed extending it beyond the pitch was excessive, even taking into account it was the third time he had been found guilty of biting an opponent after incidents with PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal and Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic.
Suarez was banned for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup but despite the player being allowed to resume training, Uruguayan football officials are still “frustrated” with the handling of the controversy.
Uruguayan Football Federation lawyer Daniel Cravo said: “We are really frustrated — we understand that the behaviour of Luis Suarez in that match deserved to be punished but we don’t think that it was the worst behaviour of a player in a World Cup.
“There have been worse situations and the players were not sanctioned at this level but of course we respect CAS’ decision. We have to wait for the reasons and we are sorry for not having achieved what our client wanted from us. I don’t want to criticise the decision because I don’t know the grounds, that’s something we are interested in checking.”
Suarez has never explained his propensity to bite opponents.
He earned a 10-game ban for biting Chelsea’s Ivanovic in 2013, after being sidelined for seven matches with Dutch club Ajax in 2010 for the same offence against PSV Eindhoven’s Bakkal. — The Telegraph
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