FIFA announced early Wednesday that it is launching an investigation to determine whether Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez bit an opposing player during Uruguay’s World Cup match against Italy on Tuesday. FIFA has given the Uruguayan national team until tomorrow afternoon to present evidence, and announced that it would issue a ruling before Uruguay plays Colombia in the Round of 16 on Saturday. Suárez could face a ban from international competition for up to 24 matches, or two years.
In the 80th minute of yesterday’s group stage match, Suárez got tangled up with Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini and appears to have bitten Chiellini in the shoulder before both players fell to the ground. No foul was called at the time, and Uruguay went on to win 1-0, sending the team through to the knockout stage of the Cup and eliminating Italy.
“These are things that happen on the pitch, we were both in the area, he thrust his shoulder into me,” Suárez said in his defense in a press conference after the match. Chiellini said the no-call was “ridiculous” and insisted that he had teeth marks to prove the bite.
Suárez is no stranger to controversy on the field. In 2013, he was banned from 10 matches for biting Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic, and in 2010, he served a seven-match ban for biting PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal. He also was banned from eight matches and fined $68,000 for using racial slurs against Manchester United’s Patrice Evra. But Suárez is perhaps best known for purposefully using his hands to prevent a Ghana goal in the quarterfinals of the 2010 World Cup, for which he received a red card.
