Barcelona striker Luis Suarez will have to serve out the two-match ban awarded to him for his role in the aftermath of the ill-tempered match against RCD Espanyol in the first leg of the Round-of-16 tie in the Copa del Rey. The RFEF, Spain’s governing football body, rejected Barcelona’s appeal yesterday, and upheld the decision to ban Suarez for two matches.
According to the referee Juan Martinez Munuera’s report, Suarez waited for the Espanyol players in the tunnel and taunted them as they came in sight, saying “I’m waiting for you, come here! You’re a waste of space!”, leading to the players having to be separated and restrained by security staff.
In their appeal, Barcelona contested the referee’s report, stating that Suarez had not used the words that were attributed to him. However, the RFEF appeals committee did not accept Barcelona’s argument stating that Barcelona offered ‘no proof to the contrary’ that Suarez had behved in the manner as stated in the referee’s report.
In addition, the appeals committe maintained that Suarez’s presence in the dressing room tunnel of his opponents indicated “premeditated planning”, and thus decided to uphold Suarez’s 2 match ban, which will see him miss the next leg of their tie with
Barcelona will appeal to another body
Barcelona have outlined their intentions to not take Suarez’s ban lying down, with the Catalan club now taking their case to Spain’s Disciplinary Committee for Sports.
In a statement on their club website Barcelona made the following comments with respect to Luis Suarez’ ban :
“FC Barcelona will file an appeal to the Spanish government’s Disciplinary Committee for Sports (TAD) over the two-match ban handed to Luis Suárez in the aftermath of the Copa del Rey Round of 16 first-leg against RCD Espanyol. The Club will take the matter to TAD after seeing the initial appeal rejected by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF).”
“In the appeal, the Club reiterates that the player, by his own confession, did not say the offensive words which were attributed to him after the game. The two-match ban would affect the next two Copa del Rey matches, the first of which comes this Wednesday against Espanyol and, should Barça progress, the Uruguayan would miss the first-leg of the quarter-final.”
