adminLUIS SUÁREZ has claimed that the bite he made on the Italian Giorgi Chiellini was an accident caused by losing his balance, “making my body unstable and falling on top of my opponent.” Fifa banned Suárez from football for four months, following the incident in the group game against Italy last Tuesday, because he failed to show any contrition for biting Chiellini.
According to Fifa’s ruling, which Liverpool have now been given by Suárez’s lawyer Alejandro Balbi and which is being translated from Spanish, the Uruguay striker claimed “in no way it happened how you have described, as a bite or intent to bite”.
“In the run-up to the impact, my knees came together, I lost my balance and that destabilised my body and I fell into my opponent.
“In the moment, my face came into collision with the player, causing a small bruise on my cheekbone and a lot of pain to my teeth, which caused the referee to stop play.”
Fifa’s seven-strong panel wholly rejected Suárez’s version of events claiming the bite was “deliberate, intentional and without provocation”.
The panel said: “At no point did the player show any contrition or repentance of any type, nor did he admit any violation of Fifa regulations and has therefore not shown any knowledge of having committed any offence.”
In applying the sanction the committee considered “the grave danger of repetition, the exceedingly abnormal nature (of the offence) in the context of a football match and the intention to harm the opponent.”
Suárez returned to Uruguay after being told that he could not remain with the national squad in Brazil. Uruguay have informed Fifa that they intend to appeal against the Suárez decision and have to give written notice of that by Monday with arguments, then submitted by July 6.
Liverpool are now stepping up their pursuit of Chile’s Alexis Sánchez as they prepare to sell Suárez to Barcelona in what is turning into an extremely busy summer for the club. More than £110 million worth of transfer targets have been secured or are being lined up. There is a budget of over £60 million which will be supplemented by whatever is brought in through sales.
The biggest move will be the expected departure of Suárez and there now appears an acceptance at Anfield that he will go despite signing a new long-term contract.
Liverpool therefore want to include Sánchez as part of the negotiations with Barcelona. It appears that Barcelona will not have to meet the buy-out clause in Suárez’s contract — estimated at between £65 million and £80 million depending on sources — if Sánchez is included.
Liverpool will face competition to sign the 25-year-old and, because of his World Cup commitments, are yet to establish whether he wants to join them as manager Brendan Rodgers continues to strengthen his squad ahead of the club’s Champions League campaign next season.
Liverpool will announce on Sunday that they have signed Adam Lallana from Southampton for £23 million and will also make a move for another Southampton player, Dejan Lovren, the central defender, who will cost more than £15 million.
Southampton, who have sold Rickie Lambert to Liverpool for £4 million and Luke Shaw to Manchester United for £27 million, face a fight to keep the Croatian, 24, who wants Champions League football.
Liverpool are also close to finalising a £10 million move for the 19-year-old Belgium striker Divock Origi, but will wait until his country’s participation in the World Cup is over, and want Benfica’s Serbian winger Lazar Markovic who is believed to have a £20 million release clause. Liverpool have already signed midfielder Emre Can from Bayer Leverkusen for £10 million.
Liverpool maintain that if they sell Suárez it is not as a result of the ban for biting Chiellini — the striker is not able to play for his club until the end of October — but because they are expecting a deal which is a “game-changer” from Barcelona. Liverpool were set to study the written reasons given by Fifa for the ban yesterday, and are employing a QC and a lawyer who are experts on Fifa.
There is no mechanism for Liverpool to mount any legal challenge to Fifa’s decision. Fifa’s disciplinary panel heard that he did not deliberately bite Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup, saying: “I lost my balance and hit my face against the player.”
Fifa has been formally informed of an appeal against Suarez’s ban for biting Chiellini.
The Uruguay football federation will now have a further seven days
to prepare the paperwork for the appeal.
In his letter to Fifa’s disciplinary panel, dated June 25, Suarez wrote: “In no way did it happen how you have described, as a bite or intent to bite.”
The player’s defence is in Paragraph Six of Fifa’s disciplinary committee ruling. “After the impact . . . I lost my balance, making my body unstable and falling on top of my opponent,” Suarez wrote in his submission to the panel which met on Wednesday, one day after Uruguay beat Italy 1-0 in a decisive group-stage match.
“At that moment I hit my face against the player leaving a small bruise on my cheek and a strong pain in my teeth.”
However, the seven-man panel dismissed the argument.
The bite was “deliberate, intentional and without provocation,” the ruling stated in Paragraph 26 of the panel’s conclusions.
Suarez was banned for nine Uruguay matches and four months from all football. He was also fined 100 000 Swiss Francs (£66 000).
The panel, chaired by former Switzerland international Claudio Sulser, included members from the Cook Islands, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Panama, South Africa and Singapore.
The ruling confirmed that referee Marco Rodriguez of Mexico acknowledged in his match report that he missed Suarez’s bite. So did his two assistants and the fourth official.
“I haven’t seen the incident because the ball was in another sector of the pitch,” Rodriguez writes in Paragraph Four of witness submissions in the 11-page document. — The Telegraph
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