- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
By any standards of behaviour, why does Liverpool and Uruguay’s crack footballer Luis Suarez bite opponents?
Not once, not twice, but three times.
Suarez copped seven games for biting Ajax’s Olman Bakkal in 2010, and another 10 games for chomping on Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic last year.
The third chomp was against Italian defender Georgio Chiellini last Tuesday, with FIFA, as usual, sitting on its backside doddering over what to do.
The end result is clear, Suarez’s World Cup must be over with a suspension that should, and must, extend well beyond the maximum four games left for Uruguay in Brazil.
The maximum is 24 games, or two years. The latter looms large.
Which raises the question, why would such a terrific footballer endanger his reported $361,000 a week at Liverpool?
He’s a millionaire every three weeks just to play, but that’s just the minimum with personal sponsorships going close to doubling that figure.
One thing is for sure, sponsors will be looking for an escape clause, and they won’t have to look far to turn contracts into confetti.
What’s more interesting is what will Liverpool’s management reaction be, and that of the Liverpool fans?
Suarez is Liverpool’s most potent attacking weapon, and the club will be the poorer if drastic action is taken.
Even though the Liverpool brand is strong internationally, and it doesn’t need a black mark dirtying the linen.
But that still doesn’t answer the question why Suarez is a compulsive biter?
Just as why did Mike Tyson take a huge hunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear in that infamous world heavyweight title fight in Atlanta in June, 1997.
Referee Mills Lane, a showpony if ever there was one, disqualified Tyson on the spot, and he subsequently lost his boxing license.
The right decisions.
Nowhere near as serious are the “squirrel grip” rugby league and rugby footballers.
Souths Sam Burgess copped two matches for a “squirrel grip” tackle last year against the Storm.
Burgess claimed he didn’t mean to grip. But if a defender’s hand is on an attacker’s family jewels, there was no calling to grip.
A pathetic excuse.
In the Rugby World Cup final in 1999, the French embarked on a “squirrel grip” and eye gouging campaign until Wallaby skipper John Eales warned South African referee Andre Watson if he didn’t stop the French and their illegalities, Eales was going to walk the Wallabies off the field and Watson would be left to explain to the IRB why only half the finalists were on duty.
The Wallabies stayed put, Watson started penalising the French as he should have done earlier, and the Wallabies romped away with their second Rugby World Cup.
So let’s sit back and see what FIFA does with Luis Suarez, and how long they take to do it.
My bet is FIFA’s president Sepp Blatter will milk the Suarez case for all it’s worth.
With a bit of luck that will be Blatter’s last hurrah before the round ball sport gives him the long overdue flick.
In the meantime, Luis Suarez had better have a meaningful chat with his bank manager.