Football
ESPN staff 10y

Mourinho questions Suarez stadium ban

Jose Mourinho said the length of Luis Suarez's ban for biting Giorgio Chiellini is deserved but has questioned FIFA's decision to ban the striker from all football-related activity.

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Suarez has been banned from all football-related activity for four months by FIFA following his bite on Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay's 1-0 World Cup group win over Italy on Tuesday.

As a result he left Uruguay's team hotel ahead of the 2-0 round of 16 defeat against Colombia after having his accreditation revoked and was unable to enter the stadium to watch the game.

Mourinho allegedly got around a stadium ban of his own when Chelsea faced Bayern Munich in a Champions League quarterfinal in April 2005 by hiding in a laundry basket to gain access to the home dressing room, while communicating with fitness coach Rui Faria during the match.

Speaking in his role as Yahoo's global football ambassador the Chelsea manager also insisted Suarez's behaviour "has to stop", referencing the two previous occasions on which the player has bitten opponents.

He said: "I think the punishment is deserved because it is an accumulation of the same negative act on the football pitch.

"What I really don't like in football is the stadium ban. What's the problem for Suarez to be in the stadium, in the middle of the Uruguay supporters watching the game between his country and Colombia? It's too hard; it's something that I really don't understand.

"If his punishment comes as a sequence of three similar mistakes in three different situations, it is something that he deserves. It has to stop."

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