FIFA needs to determine the appropriate punishment for Uruguay’s superstar striker Luis Suarez after he bit Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini during their World Cup match yesterday. This is the third time that Suarez has used his teeth during a soccer match, so previous punishments didn’t make an adequate impression on him. According to the rules, lifetime banishment doesn’t seem to be an option.
The case will now be managed by Swiss lawyer, Claudio Sulser, chairman of the FIFA disciplinary committee. A former international forward himself, Sulser has worked for four years at FIFA, first as head of its ethics committee and now the disciplinary panel.
Sulser can choose to judge the obvious offense within the scale of typical red-card incidents: A three-match ban may then be appropriate, banishing Suarez at least until the World Cup final should Uruguay advance through the knockout rounds.
There’s scope for a more severe sanction: under the guidelines a ban of up to 24 international matches could be applied.
Suarez and the Uruguay football federation had until 5 p.m. local time (4 p.m. EDT/2000 GMT) to present a case for the defense.
Personally, I think biting is so far outside what is acceptable that a repeat offender ought to be banished from the game. Why give him a fourth chance to maim someone? But a 24 match ban from international games would cover more than a year (e.g., Uruguay played 17 matches in 2013). What I think FIFA should do is give him the maximum penalty and then make a rule about biting that provides no third chances. Do it twice, and you’re banished forever.
Call it the Suarez Rule.
My post @ET with a diverse opinion … A Biting Suárez
12 minutes to go, Italy vs. Uruguay … Suárez does it again, bites defender Giorgio Chiellini in the shoulder. A minute later, Uruguay scores winning goal.
○ BBC Match Report
Suárez should be banned for the rest of the World Cup 2014. At first it looked like a head butt by Suárez, the Italian defender showed the bite marks in his shoulder to the ref as Suárez was hurting his front teeth. Suárez is using the same words in defence as when he put his teeth in Alkmaar player Otman Bakkal.
See my earlier post @BooMan – Luis Suárez.
Blogger Helen @ET was quite cynical, expecting a whitewash by a corrupt FIFA as the games must go on with the Super Stars. I don’t expect so.
We’ll see!
The FIFA disciplinary commission is independent and can’t be linked to the corruption of chairman Blatter. The top international referees can’t function if no sanctions are taken on this incident. The World Cup isn’t even out of the group stage, so the games need to be credible. Luis Suárez is on his way out for a long holiday, away from football.
In this match, the Mexican referee let the game slip for not adaquately punishing mean tackles and other offensive fouls. There were numerous elbows which should have been at least yellow carded, the worst could have been red-carded.
Uruguay national team should have been manly and suspended Suarez right off the bat. Such unsportsman like conduct has no place in any sport, especially not a venue of World Cup Football watched by hundreds of millions. There are 34 television cameras covering the match. The worst that can happen to any player with this conduct is for his team and management to condone his act or not taking it seriously.
I have refereed field hockey for the last 27 years, part of the task is to educate youth in the rules of the game and the coaching staff to take disciplinary action themselves before I need to apply a sanction. Sportsmanship is inherent to the game and a basic level of respect for your opponent.
So weird. He certainly shouldn’t be allowed to play any more Cup games this year – the other teams don’t need to worry about vampirism in addition to all the other pressures.
I agree with your assessment and expect a lengthy ban. It will destroy some capital for FC Liverpool at a transfer sum of $100 million, but can save £10 ($22) million per annum on salary expenses. Will miss some profits on Suárez merchandising around the globe.
○ The website of the Uruguayan TV station Tenfield questioned incident Suárez brought on by Italian losing coach and pressure British media
See my earlier comment – FIFA disciplinary committee must act.
○ Luis Suárez suspended for nine matches and banned for four months from any football-related activity
He can always play for Germany.
They could make him wear a muzzle.
How about a ball gag?
Clearly, they need a solution with teeth. :::rimshot:::
what they need more, is soccer players who aren’t wusses.
football, hockey, basketball – if someone gets BIT? they’ll get their asses lit up pretty much instantly.
the concept of OH WELP YOU BIT ME GUESS I’LL JUST GO BACK TO PLAYING is literally freakish.
Well, in football they’ve got face masks, mouth guards, helmets, and substantial amounts of body padding, which rather substantially reduces the potential of getting bit, or resolving on-field disputes by fighting. The puncher is far more likely to be injured than the recipient of the punch.
More broadly, it is very dangerous to encourage professional athletes to resolve their on-field disputes by fighting. I would suggest that goes double for international football. Allowing on-field fighting would create needless risk of injury and encourage the hooligans in the stands to become even more willing to fight.
The referees have to control the game- that’s what the sport needs more of. It is frankly unbelievable to me that Suarez didn’t get a red card, particularly given his extraordinary history here. In fact, before I looked at the reporting linked here I had assumed that Suarez must have been carded. THE FUCKING PLAYER HAD A BITE MARK ON HIS SHOULDER. Not like you can say there was a factual dispute there.
You’re not familiar with the topic of on field enforcement?
Look sports rules allow people to be a dick. Which is why in rugby, football, hockey, lacrosse, players enforce rules as well. If someone is being a dick wipe, or the ref is just letting shit fly, someone is going to beat the tar out of you or lay your ass out. Because it’s been proven that when competing, people will do whatever the fuck they can get away with.
The reason hockey enforcers exist is to punish illegal checks, slashing, and a horde of other shit. Because everybody does those things if they can get away with it. So if you do that, the meanest person on the other team is going to light your ass up and take the penalty.
In football you can expect an illegal nasty hit to end up in a contract on your ass. Someone is going to take you out and try to break a bone or scramble your brains a bit.
International soccer rules do NOT allow a player to bite another player. Neither do the rules of any other sport.
I am very familiar with the concept of on-field enforcement. I am very glad that it is slowly but surely being made to retreat in major professional sports through greater enforcement of rules and much more major punishments for rules violations.
Note how fighting in the NBA has nearly disappeared. Why? Players who fight on the court and any player who leaves the bench during any on-court scuffle is suspended without pay, with escalating suspensions for escalating violations. It is hard to describe how important it is to prevent professional basketball players from getting into fistfights. When enormously tall, strong and gifted athletes without defensive boxing training start throwing bare fists, that’s insanely dangerous. And what of the occasional fights which have edged into the stands and involved spectators? It was right to bring a stop to that insanity through consistent rules enforcement.
Similarly, in football certain hits which are most likely to create severe injuries are also resulting in suspensions. Recently, even players who did not receive an on-field roughness penalty are retroactively punished with replay evidence.
When refs “let shit fly”, they should be fired, immediately. Making players seek their own solutions to bad officiating is dangerous and is the worst part of every single sport you name here. Rough and tough, sure. Rules-breaking, hell no.
Why would anyone want to see someone “try to break a bone or scramble (someone’s) brains a bit”? That’s straight-up sociopathic.
Many sports are straight up sociopathic to start with.
Oh yes, basketball where the slightest touch results in a foul.
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/06/nhl-players-deal-world-cup-biter-luis-suarez/
Hockey player gets bitten, knocks dude down and hits him in the head, then puts finger in is face taunting him.
why is this even a question? does fifa really need to make a special rule against biting? don’t they have any catch-all policies whatsoever against unsportsmanlike behavior? isn’t biting someone a crime anyway, at least in the real world?
there’s probably no fifa rule against murder but would the league just throw up its hands if suarez were killing people instead?
A lot of things in sports are a “crime” in the real world. Many sports involve a fair degree of assault and battery. See boxing, mma, soccer, football, rugby, lacrosse, field hockey, ice hockey, judo, karate, I can go on?
a lotta that a&b is written into the rules. biting, not so much.
Job well done, Team USA proceeds to knockout stage while Ghana and Portugal lose out.
Jurgen Klinsmann and Joachim Löw were part of German management to adapt football to the Dutch style of attacking play. Part of the Dutch school is building strong national youth teams through an academy, that should be an important task of Klinsmann in the USA, building a football future.
“It is an unbelievable day for US soccer. They were not outstanding on the pitch today but they will always give 100% and be organised. The people back home will love this – we’ve finished above one of the best teams in the world and Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo are going home. The next game is going to be a massive occasion.”
Brad Friedel
○ A Klinsmann criticus from 2013
○ USA-Germany coaches share deep roots
So awesome.
Algiers – Paris on Champ Elysée – Marseille
FIFA World Cup – Deceit of 1982 Germany vs. Austria 1-0