63% say Suarez ban is too short

William JordanUS Elections Editor
June 27, 2014, 3:56 PM GMT+0

Football fans and non-fans alike say the four-month ban issued against Uruguay striker Luis Suarez for biting is not long enough

Uruguay striker Luis Suarez has been suspended from all football-related activity for four months for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during a World Cup match last Tuesday. He has been banned for nine international matches, which rules him out of the rest of the 2014 Fifa World Cup and he will also miss the first nine games of the Premier League season. While 1,000 fans reportedly awaited his return to Uruguay at the airport yesterday (though he didn’t show up), many people in Twitter and in the media have responded to the incident with mockery.

Most people in Britain appear to think Suarez is getting off easy. 63% of the general public, and seven in ten (69%) football fans, say the four month ban is “too short”. Only a tiny 4% think the ban is too long, while 23% think it’s about right and 10% don’t know.

Suarez, who also plays for Liverpool FC, has bitten twice before: once in 2010 while playing for Ajax and again last year while playing for Liverpool. The latter incident led to a fine and a ten-game ban.

Image: Getty

See the full poll results