Was a four month ban for Luis Suarez the correct decision?

Liverpool and Uruguay striker Luis Suarez has been given a four-month ban from any involvement in football

FIFA have decided to handed Uruguay and Liverpool striker Luis Suarez a ban of four-months from any involvement in football for his alleged bite on Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini.

The striker will miss nine international matches, as well as Liverpool’s first nine Premier League games and three Champions League encounters.

Suarez has also been given a fine of around £66,000 to go with his ban

Involvement

The ban of course ends Suarez’s participation at the World Cup. The striker could not stay inside the Uruguay camp or even the same hotel as his international teammates, so he has now left Brazil.

Uruguay has already confirmed that they will appeal the ban, but at this stage any appeal looks unlikely to succeed.

Suffer

The two parties that suffer the most from Suarez’s ban are Uruguay and Liverpool. Both will lose their star player. Uruguay is still at the World Cup, but they are less likely to make it much further without their star striker.

La Celeste also have PSG striker Edinson Cavani in their team, but the former-Napoli striker has not exactly been at his best in Brazil so far in the tournament.

The biggest losers in this, through no fault of their own really, are Liverpool. The Reds came so close to the Premier League title last season, despite the fact that Suarez missed the first five Premier League games of the season because of his suspension from biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic the previous season.

This time Suarez will miss even more of the campaign next season, if he is still at Liverpool of course, with reports still linking the striker with a big money move to Barcelona. Patient with the PFA Footballer of the Year is starting to run thin at Anfield.

To their credit a lot of Liverpool fans have agreed with the ban and stated that Suarez deserves his punishment. The last biting incident damaged the clubs image, but this incident will further drag the Reds reputation through the mud, even though Suarez was playing for his country at the time.

To a lot of Reds fans Luis Suarez is their football idol, but do they really want their children watching ridiculous behaviour from Suarez like he produced against Italy? I think the resounding answer would be no.

Whether they like it or not footballers are roles models and should be examples to young fans. They should not go around behaving like creatures of the night.

Help

The ban is one thing, but should someone not be looking at the cause of the problem, rather than just banning Suarez. The root of the problem seems to be that Suarez cannot seem to control himself on a pitch.

He has now committed the same offence on three occasions and does not seem to have learnt from his mistakes. Maybe somebody needs to look at Suarez’s mental state and get him help, so that this does not happen again.

He is without doubt a fantastic footballer, but he seems like a bomb waiting to go off. For much of last season it seemed he had his problem under control until the latest incident of course. Surely now would be the appropriate time to get Suarez that help.

Move

Luis Suarez has been heavily linked with a move to Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid this summer. It seems that the incident has not been enough to put the two clubs from Spain off signing Suarez, but it may give them more bargaining power in any prospective deal.

It may just be the right time for Liverpool to sell the striker. Prior to this incident he was being linked with a move away from Anfield and this incident may be the straw that broke the camel’s backs for Liverpool.

Suarez’s football ability would be a great loss to Liverpool, but his reputation damaging behaviour will not and no doubt he will bring in a big fee if he is sold this summer.

Damaged

The Reds were superb in the Premier League last season and looked all set to mount a challenge for the title again next season.

However, the Reds odds of winning the Premier League title next season are now 7/1. Whether he stays or goes this summer, the loss of Luis Suarez will be a major one for the Reds and once again the striker has let a lot of people down.

Was a four month ban for Luis Suarez the correct decision?