Luis Suarez reveals being treated like a criminal, says biting is harmless
Barcelona forward Luis Suarez has revealed in his new autobiography that he was being treated "like a criminal" after he was banned from any footballing activities by FIFA.
The former Liverpool striker received a four-month suspension from football’s governing body after he bit Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay’s win over Italy in the group stages of the FIFA World Cup 2014. The suspension delayed his debut for Barcelona, who signed him for a fee of €86 million from Liverpool back in July, but made his first appearance last month.
Barcelona contract had to be signed undercover
Suarez wasn’t even allowed to be presented before mid-August after a Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling reduced his punishment and in the Spanish version of his book, he wrote, "The absurdity of the FIFA ban became clearer day by day."
"We had to plan everything carefully just in case the paparazzi or a fan would take a photo showing activity remotely related to football.
"I had to almost secretly sign a contract without it becoming publicly known ... we had to plan everything meticulously so that nobody would see us and there would be no photos."
Not often do we find players resorting to such measures as biting opponents, but in Suarez’s case, the incident with Chiellini was the third time he had bitten a player after his moments of madness against Uruguayan PSV Eindhoven midfielder Otman Bakkal and Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic.
Suarez admits he didn’t cry only because of his coach
And Suarez, after receiving the sentence from FIFA, recalled how he was told to leave the hotel immediately by Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez in Brazil.
"It was as if I was being treated like a criminal," he recalled. "The only reason I did not cry was because the coach was there."
The 27-year-old also insisted that although the act of biting is scary, it is relatively harmless especially when his bizarre moments are compared to the Mike Tyson incident.
“You can break someone's leg and not be sanctioned," and added that "biting appalls a lot of people, but it is relatively inoffensive or at least it was in the incidents involving me.
"None of my bites were like that of [boxer] Mike Tyson to Evander Holyfield, but no one cares about that."