Inter Miami forward Luis Suárez has been suspended for three MLS matches after he spat at a Seattle Sounders staff member during the post match melee that followed the Leagues Cup final. He will miss league fixtures against Charlotte, Seattle, and DC United. The league also revoked the season-long credentials of Sounders staffer Steven Lenhart and fined the club for credential misappropriation.
The decision comes on top of a six-match Leagues Cup suspension handed down last week, which will apply to next year’s tournament. That process also punished Inter Miami’s Sergio Busquets with two Leagues Cup games, Tomás Avilés with three, and Lenhart with five. Suárez has apologised on social media, saying he regretted his actions.
This is not the first time Suárez has been at the centre of controversy. In 2014, FIFA banned him for four months from all football activity and for nine internationals, after he bit Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup. In 2011, while at Liverpool, he received an eight-match ban for racially abusing Manchester United full-back Patrice Evra. He has also been sanctioned for two other biting incidents: seven games with Ajax in 2010 for biting Otman Bakkal, and ten games with Liverpool in 2013 for biting Branislav Ivanović.
With the MLS campaign entering its run-in, Miami must cope without their leading striker for three regular-season dates while the club and the player await the broader consequences of the Leagues Cup rulings.
