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Wow-talk about extremes.
It was not that long ago, on my now-inactive sports-themed blog, Jacques Strappes Sports, where I talked about how violent the world of soccer was, after a referee stabbed a player and the fans beheaded the referee.
Yep, you read that right.
And this was an amateur soccer game in Brazil, not the Al Quaeda League Championship Game.
Now at the other end of the spectrum comes the news from the FIFA World Cup is that a Uruguay star has been banned from play for 9 games and four months.
Wow-did he main someone?
Nope-this was a biting incident.
You remember biting, right?
Something you may have done in kindergarten before peer pressure solved that little problem.
Apparently in Uruguay, they've not adopted the custom that little boys do not bite, which leads the country to produce grown men who bite.
Luis Suárez, the striker from Uruguay who has also
starred for Liverpool in England’s Premier League, was suspended for nine games
and barred from all soccer-related activities for four months Thursday after
FIFA’s disciplinary committee determined that he bit an opponent in Uruguay’s
1-0 World Cup victory over Italy.
Additionally, Suárez, who has been suspended
twice previously for biting opponents, was fined 100,000 Swiss francs, or about
$112,000.
Suárez’s ban is the longest World Cup suspension issued for
an on-field action (surpassing the eight games Mauro Tassotti of Italy received
for a vicious elbow in 1994), and it will begin immediately.
Suárez was barred for seven games in 2010 after biting an opponent while playing for the Dutch team Ajax; that incident earned him the nickname Cannibal of Ajax from a Dutch newspaper.
Suárez was sold to Liverpool just as that ban ended, and in 2013 he was caught on video biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic during a match. That produced a 10-game suspension and a rebuke from Premier League officials for not appreciating the “seriousness” of the charges after he argued that he deserved a lighter sanction.
Suarez has been suspended for biting before.
That makes him a serial biter.
Someone needs to explain to Suarez that "taking a bite out of the competition" is just an expression.
His teammates are sticking up for him.
Really?
Guys-he bites!
Maybe he's just been spending too much time watching Twilight movies, but seriously-you want this ass on your team?
My question is why is this pussy still playing soccer?
Why would any grown man want to be on the field with this baby?
It is rumored that Suarez has also been accused of taking his ball and going home, but there has been no word from FIFA confirming those charges, which would undoubtedly carry a harsher penalty.
Ha ha! That fool plays for the team my son roots for in the BPL. Wait'll I tell him!
ReplyDeleteCW-
ReplyDeleteThe whole Jonathan Martin/bullying issue caused me to lose interest in professional football.
How can I take a sport seriously when the players bite each other (or condone teammates who do)?
How old was your son when he stopped biting other kids (if he ever did at all)? I bet it was by age 5...
LC
This one made me laugh. Did you mean for it to be funny?
ReplyDeleteOn most of the posts on this blog I go for some humor...which means my other posts are not as funny as I thought...
DeleteI would have sworn that I commented on this one... did you get it? Or just deem it "unsatisfactory?" If it was the latter, I am actually okay with that. I don't know a whole lot about sports or biting. I guess that whole biting thing was emblazoned on my brain as a No No when I was a toddler.
ReplyDeleteAs for his teammates... maybe they all secretly want to bite???? I have no explanation for the support of a guy who makes the game look bad...
Your memory is sound-I just am not getting to the computer.
DeleteI have a very vague memory of a kid in kindergarten who bit another kid (both boys), and we all mocked him as a "girl."
Now maybe that was sexist of us, but at age five, we found it acceptable for girls to bite and not boys. I cannot think of another biting incident in my life until Mike Tyson decided to snack on Evander Holyfield, and now this.
If one is defending them self and biting makes their attacker stop, that's one thing...but biting someone in a game?
As a grown adult?
Quite frankly, if I were a soccer player, I would refuse to get on the field with anyone from the Uruguay team.
And while I do not plan to watch any of the remaining World Cup games, I haven't watched any up until now, so it would be hypocritical to make it sound like this incident was the catalyst.
But all humor aside, between the extreme violence last year and incidents like this, I have no interest in learning more about soccer-on the surface it's players and fan base appear to embody all of the things that are bad in sports.