Luis Suarez - an appalling advert for our beautiful game
Branislav Ivanovic talks with Luis Suarez as they walk off the pitch after the Barclays Premier League match between Liverpool and Chelsea at Anfield on April 21, 2013. (Getty Images)
It is the image we’ve all seen but are still trying to believe.
On Sunday evening’s Barclays Premier League match between Chelsea and Liverpool at Anfield, Luis Suarez and Branislav Ivanovic jostled for position in the box in what appeared to be a routine sequence of play. As the ball went out for a corner, Ivanovic arm was outstretched across Suarez’s body, and what happened next is something nobody would have predicted.
The Liverpool striker grabbed Ivanovic’s arm, pulled his face towards it, and bit the Chelsea defender in a fit of inexplicable rage. Thankfully, no real injury was caused, but if Ivanovic hadn’t been able to use the momentum of both players to throw Suarez off him, the Uruguayan could realistically have taken a chunk out of Ivanovic’s arm. Watch the incident here.
Suarez is no stranger to criticism or to bad press, and with this latest incident he has seemingly backed the FA and his club into a corner. It has become a focal point of the entire football universe for the past 72 hours, with fans and players alike taking to social media platforms after the incident to display their opinions, calling for bans and suspension and disgracing Suarez’s already tarnished name. It is now a very public and very volatile incident, and the whole footballing world is waiting for the FA’s punishment to come down.
So how severe should the punishment actually be?
Let’s look at the incident first in isolation. It was a bite by one player on another player, with the sole intention of causing him harm. Suarez has admitted that and has apologised to Ivanovic. Therefore if the referee sees it, it is deemed a straight red card for violent conduct and an automatic three-match suspension. That is the very minimum that could be imposed on Suarez for this.
However, obviously this incident goes much further than a simple three match ban for violent conduct. The FA announced on Monday that Suarez will indeed be charged and that “it is the FA’s contention that the standard punishment of three matches that would otherwise apply is clearly insufficient in these circumstances”.
Therefore, to absolutely no one’s surprise, Suarez is going to receive quite a hefty suspension. In deciding the correct punishment, the FA will consider, as it states in their guidelines, “the nature of the incident and the Player’s state of mind, in particular any intent, recklessness or negligence; The prevalence of the type of incident in question in football generally; the wider interests of football in applying consistent punishments for dismissal offences”, among other considerations. You can view the relevant section at pages 387, 388 and 389 of the FA Handbook here.
The nature of the incident was uncommon. It was an unnatural and unusually aggressive attack on another player on the football field. As to the player’s state of mind, Suarez was unprovoked by Ivanovic and seemed to act out of pure frustration, perhaps because he had just conceded a penalty. Ivanovic didn’t attack Suarez first, he didn’t push him or shove him in any gross or unexpected way and there doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that he said anything inflammatory to Suarez. He was simply marking his man, and Suarez bit him for it. It was a completely intentional act, and was violent beyond any possible parameters of the game.
Liverpool’s Luis Suarez (R) clashes with Branislav Ivanovic (L) after appearing to bite the Chelsea defender. The striker apologised for biting Ivanovic during the sides 2-2 draw at Anfield. (Getty Images)
What’s more, while there wasn’t actually an injury to Ivanovic, there very well could have been and it appeared to be Suarez’s sole intention to cause Ivanovic injury. If the Serbian defender hadn’t been able to push him off, Suarez could have taken a chunk out of Ivanovic’s arm.
So when the FA considers all these factors, it is quite clear that what is required is more severe than the regular punishment for violent conduct cases. The question to ask is how much more?
Well, one of the considerations in the FA Handbook is to maintain consistency in punishment for similar offences. With that in mind, they will look to the case of another biting incident in the Dutch league where a player was given a 7-match suspension for biting the collarbone of an opposing player during an argument that took place during a game.
Except that the player in question was Luis Suarez.
That is by far the worst thing about this incident; it isn’t the first time Suarez has bitten a player on the football pitch. In law, the second offence is always a harsher punishment than the first. This follows logic because all punishment is meant as a deterrent, and if a person repeats an offence then clearly the first punishment was not a sufficient deterrent to be effective. Therefore, if the FA wishes to maintain any sort of credibility as a governing body, it has to give Suarez a ban of at least 8 games.
However, 8 games, or even 10 games, is woefully inefficient as a punishment in these circumstances. The first bite was actually not as bad as this incident. It was still a horrendous attack, and far outside the boundaries of how a professional footballer should conduct himself on the field of play, but it was less severe than the Ivanovic incident for a couple of reasons. Firstly, provocation was relevant. The first incident appeared to be a result of something said by the PSV player, Otman Bakkal. That doesn’t justify what Suarez did; it just makes the Ivanovic incident even worse because Ivanovic did absolutely nothing to provoke Suarez. So not only is it his second offence, in comparison to the first incident it was actually worse.
There are some precedents from the world of sport that relate to this incident, although they are widely conflicting. Dylan Hartley, a Rugby Union player, was suspended for 8 weeks for biting the fingers of Stephen Ferris during an international match between England and Ireland. However, the regular punishment for such an incident is set out by the International Rugby Board as a minimum of 12 weeks and a maximum of four years. James Graham, who plays in for Australian Rugby League side the Canterbury Bulldogs, was handed a twelve-match suspension for biting the ear of an opponent during a game-time brawl. In a more serious example, David Atoub of Stade Francais, a French Rugby Union side, was given a 70-week suspension for an eye-gouging incident.
While Hartley and Graham’s punishments appear relatively lenient, it must be remembered that these are examples from Rugby, not football. Rugby is a sport that allows violence on the field to a certain degree; a sport that necessarily embraces controlled anger on the field of play. Therefore, incidents of violent conduct are more common, and dealt with in a more routine way.
Luis Suarez scores the equalising goal in the seventh minute of injury time during the Barclays Premier League match against Chelsea at Anfield on April 21, 2013. (Getty Images)
Football is quite different. The FA has made strides to destroy violence and emotional outbursts on the field in any form. You can be booked for throwing the ball in an aggressive manner. Lunging tackles, whether they make contact or not, are penalised. Red cards are given if you so much as touch another player’s face. Whether the old boys of the game like it or not, the message that the FA is conveying is that anger and violence have no place on the football field. So naturally, that message has to be continued here with a strong response to Suarez actions.
Sometimes, you have to make an example of a player. Suarez has not only bitten a player on a football field, he’s done it twice. He hasn’t learned his lesson at all, which is the most inexcusable part of this entire situation and suggests that it is simply in his nature to behave this way, regardless of what is expected of him as a professional player, as a Liverpool player or as a role model. It is his second violent offence of biting, and the third offence that calls into question his character. He’s clearly a ticking time bomb every time he walks onto the field and it isn’t right to expect players to share the field of play with someone like him.
Suarez apologised on Twitter for inexcusable fit of rage.
(Getty Images)
Players accept that when they are on the field they might have their leg broken by a strong tackle. They accept that they may be rendered unconscious by a clashing of heads. They do not accept, and never will, that they may be bitten by an opposing player who loses his cool. It is vile, it is vicious, and it is animalistic. There is no place for biting on the football field.
Disturbingly, I have read from a number of sources in the last day or so that Suarez, love him or hate him, is a media magnet and an entertaining figure in the world of football, and that his antics might actually be considered a good thing for the sport. That is utterly ridiculous. When Mario Balotelli sets his house on fire with fireworks or Joey Barton takes to twitter in a fit of rage, that is amusing and acceptable.
What Suarez has done is not. Not in any way, shape or form. Firstly his natural reaction to an argument was to bite a man on the neck. Then he is found guilty of racial abuse on the football field. Then he is such a bad professional that he even refuses to shake the hand of the man he racially insulted. After that he decided that an appropriate response to being accused of diving was to celebrate by mocking a dive. And finally, less than three years after the first biting incident, he decided to bite another player, this time on the arm without any provocation, simply because he was frustrated. That isn’t entertaining. That is evidence of a vile human being who doesn’t belong on a football pitch but in a mental institution or a prison.
Things don’t happen in a vacuum, and the fact that Suarez has previous serious disciplinary matters has to be a significant contributing factor to the FA’s decision. Biting a man once cannot be forgiven, but it can be punished and forgotten about. Twice is where the FA must draw the line. A lifetime ban has been called for by many, and wouldn’t be totally overreacting in the circumstances. Suarez has continued to be a nuisance and a distraction on the football field, promoting racism and violence as a role model to the kids that follow him. He is an appalling advert for our beautiful game, and I don’t think many people would have a problem with such a person being removed from the Premier League or any professional sporting league.
If the FA does not wish to go as far as that then at the very least they should select another severe punishment, something that would actually make him sit up and take notice. Perhaps a 12-month suspension from competitive football and a huge fine. Mike Tyson was fined $3M for biting off a chunk of Evander Hollyfield’s ear, and that was in a sport that doesn’t only accept violent conduct but requires it.
While a 12-match ban may be more in line with the FA’s goal of achieving consistency in punishment, there are no instances of players biting on the football field twice in their careers whilst having a murky history of disciplinary action in their past. This is new ground for the FA, and as such they can set their own precedent for what the correct punishment should be in these unique circumstances.
Whatever the FA decides to do, whether it be a lifetime ban, a suspension or a fine, it needs to be something that would significantly affect Suarez’s career, and get the message across both to him personally and to the football world generally that his actions are absolutely intolerable. If they instead give in to fear and elect to give him a 10-match suspension and an easily affordable fine, they will have done the integrity of the sport a disservice.