He may be on the verge of signing for Barcelona, but it looks like
Luis Suarez won't be returning to football action anytime soon after
FIFA upheld his ban for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the
World Cup in Brazil.
The world governing body
suspended the Uruguayan bad boy for nine international games and ruled
him out of any football activity for four months after the incident in
late June.
Unless Suarez wins an
appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Thursday's ruling means
he's sure to miss the start of the European football season.
An appeal to Swiss-based CAS has yet to be confirmed.
"The FIFA Appeal
Committee has decided to reject the appeals lodged by both the Uruguayan
player Luis Suarez and the Uruguayan FA, and to confirm the decision
rendered by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee on 25 June 2014 in its
entirety," FIFA said in a statement on its website.
"The terms of the decision taken by the FIFA Appeal Committee were communicated to the player and the Uruguayan FA today."
When Suarez bit Chiellini
on June 24 as Uruguay eliminated 2006 world champion Italy, it marked
the third time he'd taken a chunk out of an opponent.
The Liverpool striker was
banned domestically for 10 games in April 2013 when he bit Chelsea's
Branislav Ivanovic in an English Premier League match, and he was handed
a seven-game punishment while with Dutch club Ajax for biting PSV's
Otman Bakkal in November 2010.
Despite his indiscretions
-- Suarez was also hit with an eight-game ban in December 2011 for
racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra -- the
27-year-old is expected to complete his move to Spain in the coming
days.
Liverpool wants a transfer fee of £75 million ($128 million) for the
reigning Premier League player of the season, who scored 31 goals for
the club in 2013-14.
If the sides agree on
that figure, it would make Suarez the third most expensive player in
football history after Real Madrid duo Gareth Bale and Cristiano
Ronaldo.
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