Liverpool could be left sweating on the availability of Darwin Nunez following the horrific scenes at the end of Uruguay’s Copa America semi-final loss to Colombia last week.
When a horde of spectators descended threateningly upon the area where the Uruguayan players’ families were sitting, the Reds attacker and several teammates took matters into their own hands by climbing into the stands to confront the unruly mob, with no discernible security presence of which to speak.
However, as reported by Football Insider, the football authorities might take a dim view of the 25-year-old’s instinctive actions, and if FIFA become involved, he could be facing the kind of ban which was imposed on a compatriot who was Anfield a decade ago.
Ten years on from Luis Suarez receiving a four-month suspension from all football activity after biting Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup, Nunez is potentially at risk of being banned at club level as well as for his country if the global governing body feels that such a punishment is appropriate.
If Nunez is given a lengthy ban over what happened in Charlotte last week, it’d be nothing short of disgraceful.
Put yourself in his shoes for a minute – imagine that your partner and your two-year-old son are attending a football match and, without any provocation, set upon by a horde of yobs who are hell-bent on causing violence, but for some reason there’s zero security presence in the stands.
What are you going to do, idly stand by and wait for police to magically appear in the nick of time, or act upon your paternal instinct and do everything in your power to protect your family when they’re under a clear and present threat?
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The real question that FIFA and the relevant authorities should be asking is why there was no discernible security at the stadium, and why was it so easy for a mob of spectators to descend upon innocent women and children, with a wholly apparent intention to cause violence.
Instead, football’s governing body seems more interested in making Nunez and his teammates the fall guys for an unacceptable situation which wasn’t their fault. Liverpool (and the clubs of other players potentially facing a ban) could end up being punished for something in which they had no involvement, which is totally wrong.
It seems that we live in an era where a player protecting one’s family could be deemed an ‘offence’ more worthy of punishment than a club deliberately falsifying accounts and flouting financial regulations in order to manipulate the course of domestic and European competitions.
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