The 5 longest bans of Luis Suarez’s career with potential spitting suspension to come
Former Liverpool and Barcelona striker Luis Suarez is in hot water again. He could be set for one of the lengthiest suspensions of his career after appearing to spit at Seattle Sounders coach Obed Vargas following Inter Miami’s 3-0 defeat in the Leagues Cup final.
The 38-year-old is out of contract at the end of the 2025 MLS season and a spell on the sidelines might see him miss a significant proportion of what might be the final months of his professional career.
We’ve taken a closer look at Suarez’s infamous footballing rap sheet – here are the five longest suspensions of his career.
Giorgio Chiellini biting incident – four months and nine matches
The third such incident of Suarez’s career (more on the other two to come) received the most lengthy punishment.
FIFA took unprecedented action, fining him £66,000 and banning him from entering any stadium for four months after biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the 2014 World Cup.
“Such behaviour cannot be tolerated on any football pitch, and in particular not at a World Cup when the eyes of millions of people are on the stars on the field,” said Claudio Sulser, the chair of FIFA’s disciplinary committee.
That meant he missed Uruguay’s Round of 16 defeat to Colombia in Brazil, as well as their Copa America title defence the following summer.
The club ban also threw his departure from Liverpool into serious doubt, although Barcelona eventually made the decision to sign him for a club-record £75million.
He made his long-awaited debut for Barcelona in late October 2014, a 3-1 defeat to Real Madrid, but his assist to Neymar pointed at better times to come.
Suarez’s delayed introduction to the team helped turn around the fortunes of under-pressure manager Luis Enrique, and he played a starring role in the club’s treble-winning campaign that year.
Branislav Ivanovic biting incident – 10 matches
Suarez scored a late header to equalise in a 2-2 draw at home to Chelsea in April 2013, but the goal was overshadowed by him taking a chunk out of Branislav Ivanovic’s right arm.
The match officials missed it at the time. Suarez later accepted the FA charge of violent conduct but claimed he should receive the standard punishment for violent conduct, a three-match ban.
Liverpool claimed they were “shocked and disappointed” at the length of the suspension but decided against an appeal.
“I apologise to my manager and everyone at Liverpool for letting them down,” Suarez said in a statement.
“I’ve spoken to Ivanovic on the phone and I could apologise directly to him.”
The Uruguayan missed the final four matches of Liverpool’s underwhelming 2012-13 campaign, as well as the first five league games of the following season.
He returned to produce arguably the best individual campaign of any player in Premier League history, the inspiration behind Liverpool’s surprise title charge, but his absence might have ultimately cost them.
Brendan Rodgers’ side dropped five points (a 2-2 draw with Swansea and a 1-0 home defeat to Southampton) during his early-season suspension and ended up just two points behind Manchester City.
Patrice Evra racism incident – 8 matches
In November 2011, Suarez was charged by the Football Association with racially abusing Manchester United left-back Evra during a 1-1 draw at Anfield.
Suarez admitted that he’d used a derogatory term, speaking in the Uruguayan media, but argued that he “called [Evra] something his team-mates at Manchester call him”.
“There are cameras, you can see [Suarez] say a certain word to me at least 10 times,” Evra told French station Canal+.
The following month, Suarez was banned for eight games following a six-day hearing. It was briefly suspended, during which the Liverpool players wore a shirt supporting the striker, but the club ultimately decided against pending an appeal.
“There is no doubt we made a massive mistake; that was obvious,” former Liverpool vice-captain Jamie Carragher reflected in 2019.
“Maybe I have to look at myself now and say I did not have the courage as an individual to say ‘I am not wearing it’.
“I don’t think everyone within Liverpool Football Club thought what we were doing was right but I do think as a football club, or you as a family, your first reaction is to support them even if you know that they are wrong, and that is wrong.
“I am not condoning it, but that is the first reaction. Apologies. We got it massively wrong.”
Liverpool lost to Bolton and Manchester City and drew 0-0 with Stoke City during his suspension, which preceded a collapse in form in the second half of the season. Kenny Dalglish’s Reds finished 8th with 52 points, their lowest tally of the Premier League era.
Otman Bakkal biting incident – 7 matches
Not long after he announced himself with brilliant performances at the 2010 World Cup, but shortly before he became a household name at Liverpool, Suarez was dubbed by Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf as the ‘Cannibal of Ajax’ for biting PSV Eindhoven midfielder Otman Bakkal.
Ajax fined him and banned him for two matches, but the punishment from the Dutch FA was considerably more severe – seven matches after finding him guilty of ‘a violent act – biting an opponent’.
The suspension ran through until February 2011, by which point he’d made a mid-season move to Liverpool. That proved to be his final Eredivisie appearance for Ajax.
Dutch Super Cup flying tackle – 2 matches
Remarkably, for a player with such a history of controversy, Suarez has only received two straight red cards in his nearly one thousand competitive outings. They both came in the same summer.
Weeks after his infamous handball against Ghana, he was sent off for a reckless lunge on Cheick Tiote as Ajax were defeated 1-0 by FC Twente in the Johan Cruyff Shield, AKA the Dutch Super Cup.
He was subsequently suspended for the first two matches of the 2010-11 Eredivisie campaign.
Suarez was later handed a couple of two-match bans during his time at Barcelona, including a suspension that ruled him out of Barcelona’s 2017 Copa del Rey final victory over Alaves.
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