#4 Luis Suarez – 4 months
Recognised as one of the world’s most talented strikers, Uruguay and Barcelona’s Luis Suarez is also one of the most controversial. He’d been in hot water during his time at Ajax for biting PSV attacker Otman Bakkal and his reputation hadn’t improved at Liverpool, as he’d been banned for eight games in 2011/12 for racially abusing Man United defender Patrice Evra and then for another 10 when he bit Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic two seasons later.
His longest ban would follow another biting incident, this time for his country rather than his club. Spearheading Uruguay’s attack in the 2014 World Cup, Suarez had essentially knocked England out of the tournament with his two decisive goals in their match, and was looking to repeat the same against Italy to guarantee his country a passage into the knockout stages.
During the game, with the score still 0-0, Suarez sunk his teeth into the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini. The referee missed the incident, but nobody else did and after the game – Uruguay won 1-0 with a goal from Diego Godin just two minutes later – he was in trouble.
FIFA hit Suarez with a four-month ban which would’ve kept him out of nine Premier League games as well as a handful of Liverpool’s Champions League fixtures. Rather than continue to deal with the controversy, the Reds sold Suarez to Barcelona for £75m – a move which made conspiracy theorists suspect the Uruguayan may have engineered the whole situation to get his desired move.
