AKIPRESS.COM - Uruguay's Luis Suarez got a nine-match ban for biting.
Uruguay's mercurial striker Suarez was handed a nine-match ban by FIFA - the biggest imposed at a World Cup - for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during Tuesday's group match and been suspended from any football-related activity for four months.
"Such behaviour cannot be tolerated on any football pitch, and in particular not at a FIFA World Cup when the eyes of millions of people are on the stars on the field," soccer's world governing body said in a statement, the Gulf-Time news agency reports.
Uruguay's FA president Wilmar Valdez said they would appeal, while its government will meet to discuss "options" relating to the ban, which ends Suarez's World Cup involvement and forces him to miss the first two months of the English season.
Suarez, voted England's Footballer of the Year after scoring 31 league goals for Liverpool last term, has now been involved in three incidents of biting opponents, and one of racial abuse.
The latest ban means the 27-year-old will have missed 34 matches in total as punishment for those offences.