Spanish club Barcelona will not be allowed to carry out a public unveiling of their newly-signed Uruguay striker Luis Suarez, according to FIFA.
Suarez is currently serving a four-month and nine international match ban for biting Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini during a World Cup group stage match, and he is being barred from participating in any football related activity by the football governing body.
"The ban relates to all football-related activity," Delia Fischer, FIFA's head of media explained. "He cannot be in a football-related public event irrespective of the venue. He cannot even be involved in a football-related charity event."
During the official unveiling of Brazilian star Neymar at Barcelona in June last year, around 90,000 people attended the event at the Camp Nou Stadium.
The Uruguay talisman has recently penned a five-year deal with the La Liga club, which is thought to around £75 million. Suarez had appealed against the ban imposed on him, but the appeal committee rejected the plea straightaway.
This was the third time Suarez has bitten an opponent in four years and while handing a lengthy ban to the Uruguay international FIFA took that into account. However, he later apologised to Chiellini for the incident.
The former Ajax player has an option of appealing to reduce the ban in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Suarez's lawyer Alejandro Balbi termed the ban as fascist and insisted that the punishment give to his client violates his working rights.
"(Punishment was) blatantly draconian, totalitarian and fascist". Balbi told Spanish radio station Cope. "The right of a footballer to work is being violated, and football should be worried about that. The nine (international) games may seem excessive, but the fact that he can't watch a game of football, or train or carry out his job, we are talking about unpleasant things."
Suarez is set to miss first few matches for the Spanish club because of the ban, before joining Lionel Messi and Neymar at the Camp Nou. However, Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu is excited about the scary attacking line-up of his club.
"It is incredible to join those three players in the same club," Bartomeu told to Sky Sports. "It's something fantastic and something unusual. It's unusual in the world of football to have three top players plus Iniesta, plus Busquets, plus Pique, plus Mascherano and the young ones that are coming - it's incredible to have this team."
