Barcelona striker Luis Suarez has failed in his appeal to have a four-month playing ban overturned but the Court of Arbitration for Sport has cleared him to train with his new club.
The Uruguay international was suspended from all football-related activity for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup, with the punishment also including a nine-match suspension from internationals and a hefty fine.
Suarez, the Uruguayan federation and Barcelona - who spent £75million to sign the striker from Liverpool after he was sent home from Brazil in disgrace - appealed to CAS and the club, at least, have had a degree of success.
Barcelona's priority was to have Suarez available to work with the team, important in pre-season but essential when he is a new player, and CAS has relented on that issue.
"The CAS Panel has partially upheld the appeal. The sanctions imposed on the player by FIFA have been generally confirmed," said a statement.
"However, the four-month suspension will apply to official matches only and no longer to other football-related activities (such as training, promotional activities and administrative matters).
"The CAS Panel found that the sanctions imposed on the player were generally proportionate to the offence committed.
"It has however considered that the stadium ban and the ban from 'any football-related activity' were excessive given that such measures are not appropriate to sanction the offence committed by the player and would still have an impact on his activity after the end of the suspension."
"Luis Suarez is found guilty of violation of the FIFA Disciplinary Code for having committed an act of assault during the match between Italy and Uruguay played on June 24 2014 at the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil," added the statement.
"Luis Suarez is banned for nine consecutive official matches of the national team of the Uruguay.
"Luis Suarez is declared ineligible to play in official matches at any level for a period of four consecutive months, starting on June 25 2014 and is sanctioned to pay a fine in the amount 100,000 Swiss francs (£66,255)."
It is the third time Suarez had been found guilty of biting an opponent in his career.
While he was at Ajax, Suarez bit PSV Eindhoven's Otman Bakkal in November 2010, and while at Liverpool he bit Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic in April 2013.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article