by Zara Mustapha

Banned Uruguayan striker, Luis Suarez has denied ‘biting’ Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini, suggesting he lost his balance and fell onto him.

Suarez wrote the FIFA’s disciplinary panel saying he did not deliberately sink his teeth into the player, and that he was the person who was left in the most pain.

‘In no way it happened how you have described, as a bite or intent to bite,’ the Uruguay striker wrote in Spanish in a letter dated June 25.

He added: ‘After the impact … I lost my balance, making my body unstable and falling on top of my opponent.’

Daily Mail reports:

The player’s defense is in paragraph 6 of FIFA’s disciplinary committee ruling. 

Suarez wrote in his submission to the panel which met Wednesday, one day after Uruguay beat Italy 1-0 in a decisive group-stage match. 

‘At that moment I hit my face against the player leaving a small bruise on my cheek and a strong pain in my teeth,’ Suarez said.

However, the seven-man panel which met on Wednesday evening dismissed the argument.

The bite was ‘deliberate, intentional and without provocation,’ the ruling stated in paragraph No. 26 of the panel’s conclusions.

Suarez was banned for nine Uruguay matches and four months from all football. He was also fined 100,000 Swiss francs ($112,000).

The panel, chaired by former Switzerland international Claudio Sulser, included members from the Cook Islands, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Panama, South Africa and Singapore.

The ruling confirmed that referee Marco Rodriguez of Mexico acknowledged in his match report that he missed Suarez’s bite. So did his two assistants and the fourth official.

‘I haven’t seen the incident because the ball was in another sector of the pitch,’ Rodriguez writes in paragraph No. 4 of witness submissions in the 11-page document.

A FIFA spokesperson said that they had received a formal ‘intention to appeal’ from the AUF on Friday night and that the Uruguayans now have a further seven days to submit their written reasons for the appeal.

Suarez was banned on Thursday for Uruguay’s next nine competitive international matches and from any involvement in football for four months after biting defender Giorgio Chiellini in their 1-0 Group D win over Italy. 

When he returned home to Montevideo, he was pictured holding his children and greeting fans from his balcony