Giorgio
Chiellini, the Italian defender who Luis Suarez bit, has hit out at the
Uruguay striker's four month ban, calling it 'excessive'.
The
defender spoke after hundreds of fans gathered outside Montevideo's
Carrasco international airport to await the player's arrival before he
was due to head home to the resort of Solymar, around 25 miles outside
the city.
Many were carrying Uruguay flags, posters
and replicas of the World Cup trophy - but a few couldn't resist
wearing a set of fangs to welcome him back.
Suarez
was given a nine-match international ban by FIFA as well as a four
month ban from all football, as well as a £66,000 fine, for the
incident, which happened during Uruguay's 1-0 win over Italy in the
World Cup group stages.
Chiellini, who had kept silent since
Tuesday, said on his website: 'At the moment my only thought is for Luis
and his family, because they will face a very difficult time.
'I have
always considered unequivocal the disciplinary interventions by the
competent bodies, but at the time time I believe that the proposed
formula is excessive.'
Support: A Uruguay fan shows a sign in solidarity with player Luis
Suarez while waiting for his arrival outside Montevideo's Carrasco
international airport
Diego Maradona, who lifted the World
Cup with Argentina in 1986, also came to Suarez's defence, comparing the
ban to a sentence in Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
'The
Fifa sanction is shameful, they have no sensitivity towards the fans,
they might as well handcuff him and throw him in Guantanamo,' he said on
a TV show while wearing a t-shirt with the slogan ‘Luis, we are with
you’.
Please don't eat me! Suarez's mockery continued as fans hijacked an advert on the streets of Rio de Janiero
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