New York (AFP) – Inter Miami star Luis Suarez has been handed a six-match suspension for his actions following last weekend’s stormy Leagues Cup final defeat to the Seattle Sounders, tournament disciplinary chiefs said on Friday. The 38-year-old former Uruguay, Liverpool and Barcelona star was sanctioned for spitting at a Sounders official after becoming embroiled in a melee following Miami’s 3-0 loss.
A statement from the Leagues Cup Disciplinary Committee said Suarez’s suspension would only apply to next year’s edition of the tournament, although Major League Soccer “reserves the right” to impose additional punishment. Suarez’s Inter Miami teammate Sergio Busquets has also been given a two-match ban. Another Inter player, Tomas Aviles, has been barred from three games. Seattle coaching staff member Steven Lenhart has been suspended for five games.
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The range of punishments followed chaotic scenes at the end of Miami’s defeat in Sunday’s final at Seattle in the joint competition for teams from MLS and Mexico’s Liga-MX. Immediately after the final whistle, Suarez rushed at 20-year-old Sounders midfielder Obed Vargas and put him in a headlock, sparking a melee involving multiple players and staff from both sides. Officials scrambled to restore order, but cameras later caught Suarez spitting at a Seattle security staff member as he walked away from Vargas.
Suarez — who has previously been hit with suspensions for biting and racially abusing opponents in separate incidents earlier in his career — issued an apology for his behaviour in a statement on Thursday. “It was a moment of great tension and frustration, where right after the match things happened that shouldn’t have happened, but that doesn’t justify the reaction I had,” Suarez wrote on Instagram.
“I was wrong and I sincerely regret it… I feel bad about what happened, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to acknowledge it and apologize to everyone who felt hurt by what I did,” Suarez added. It marked the latest episode in Suarez’s chequered disciplinary career. He was infamously kicked out of the 2014 World Cup after being handed a four-month ban for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini.
He has also been sanctioned for biting incidents in club play and in 2011 he was handed an eight-game ban by authorities in England for allegedly racially abusing Manchester United’s France star Patrice Evra. He was also one of the villains of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, when his cynical handball on the goal-line denied Ghana what would have been a late winner in the quarter-finals.
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