Suarez banned and fined

Luis Suarez was at the centre of an extraordinary legal battle as Fifa gave him an unprecedented four-month ban from "all
football-related activities" following his bite on Giorgio Chiellini.

The Uruguay Football Federation will appeal against the ban but Liverpool are taking legal

advice to establish, among other things, whether they also have grounds to challenge it.

Liverpool, who have previously been steadfastly supportive of the controversial striker, following the announcement kept some public distance from the incident, taking counsel and
gathering information before commenting further.

Suarez was banned for nine competitive international matches and fined £66,000 by
Fifa's disciplinary committee as well as being given the four-month ban, which will prevent
him from playing, training or even entering a football stadium.

This would rule him out of the
first nine Premier League matches of next season , as well as the first three Champions
League group games, but it would not prevent him from being transferred to another club .

More immediately, Suarez is out of Uruguay's last-16 match against Colombia at the Maracana Stadium on Saturday, as well as the rest of the
World Cup.

Suarez is banned from matches and even from the Uruguay hotel so cannot be with his team mates ahead of the game.

Suarez was said on Thursday night to be heading back to
Montevideo to be with his family.

The Uruguay.federation will appeal, although that appeal will
have no "suspensive effect" on his ban.

It means he misses the Colombia game no matter what.

"We are preparing our appeal now, we have three days to do it," said the federation's president Wilmar Valdez. "It is an excessive decision and there was not enough evidence and I have seen more aggressive incidents recently.

It is a severe punishment. I don't know exactly which arguments they used but it is a tough
punishment for Suarez. It's feels like Uruguay has been thrown out of the World Cup."