Diego Maradona calls Luis Suarez ban ‘shameful’
By Mike Dyce
FIFA dropped the hammer on Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez for biting Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini during the 2014 World Cup. His punishment includes a nine game suspension and a four month ban from all football actives.
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Before the punishment was handed down it seemed like everyone was on board with the idea of punishing Suarez, since the punishment was announced it seems like more a substantial amount of people have come out and called the ban excessive. That includes Chiellini, the player who was bitten.
Argentina legend Diego Maradona, who was given a 15-month ban during the 1994 World Cup for testing positive for the banned stimulant ephedrine, is among them.
“The FIFA sanction is shameful, they have no sensitivity towards the fans, they might as well handcuff him and throw him in Guantanamo,” said Maradona, via Sky Sports.
“The sanction on Luis is a way of punishing Uruguayan clubs for asking CONMEBOL (the South American confederation) for a fairer share of money. It hurts that they have cut short the career of a lad who is a winner. It’s an excessive suspension, FIFA cannot talk about morals to anyone.
“Suarez didn’t kill anyone. This is an unjust punishment.”
It is surprising that there has been a somewhat negative reaction to the suspension. Not so surprisingly Uruguay’s president Jose Mujica wasn’t on-board with the suspension in comments he made to Maradona on his television show ‘De Zurda’ on Thursday.
“We feel that this is an assault on the poor because this gang will never forgive him because he never went to university, he isn’t educated, he grew up on the field, and he is a natural rebel and expresses his anger naturally,” said the president.
“Here they add everything together but the boy really shouldn’t be blamed for his reaction. It’s a match and these things happen and then there’s no need to look into every incident, because if we did that in every game we’d be playing five-a-side.”