Few hours back, FIFA announced that Lionel Messi has been banned from 4 World Cup qualifying games. Want to know the reason behind this? Well, last week, in a World Cup qualifying game against Chile, Messi had verbally abused a match official and this led to a ban on him.
The disciplinary panel of FIFA slapped a 4-game suspension along with a penalty of $10,160 i.e. 10,000 Swiss Francs. As of now, there are 5 World Cup qualifiers remaining and Messi will miss 4 of them. He will return only for the final qualifier i.e. on 10th of October in Ecuador. Here’s the tweet;
Currently, the Argentina Federation has stated that an appeal will be made for this ban. According to FIFA, Messi insulted an assistant referee; the body further added, “This decision is in line with the FIFA Disciplinary Committee’s previous rulings in similar cases.”
The incident happened on Thursday in Buenos Aires, when Argentina beat Chile 1-0. In a video footage, Messi reacted very angrily when Emerson Carvalho, the assistant referee accused him of fouling an opponent. This was not it; he also waved his hands and hurled insults at the assistant. Even after the game, Messi didn’t shake hands with Carvalho.
FIFA had to intervene because head referee Sandro Ricci didn’t include this incident in the report; currently the video footage of the same is being investigated.
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