Five Uruguay players, including Liverpool forward Darwin Nunez and Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s Rodrigo Bentancur, have had appeals against bans for a confrontation with Colombia fans after the Copa America semi-final rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).<\/p>\n
Following Uruguay\u2019s 1-0 defeat on July 10 last year at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, players entered the stands where supporters had been brawling close to where the players\u2019 families were seated.<\/p>\n
Some Uruguay players and staff were seen grappling with Colombia fans while Nunez was seen on video attempting to throw a chair into the stands. Uruguayan players and coaches said they were acting in self-defence. Speaking after the match, Uruguay head coach Marcelo Bielsa said: \u201cThe only thing I can tell you is that the players reacted like any other human being would.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nunez received a five-game suspension from CONMEBOL, the South American football federation, and was fined $20,000 (\u00a315,000). Bentancur got a four-game suspension and $16,000 fine while Napoli\u2019s Mathias Olivera, Barcelona\u2019s Ronald Araujo and Atletico Madrid\u2019s Josema Gimenez were given three-game bans and fined $12,000 (\u00a39,000).<\/p>\n
Marcelo Garcia, a Uruguayan official, was seen on video throwing a bottle at Colombian fans and he was banned from CONMEBOL competitions for six months.<\/p>\n
These sanctions were upheld in September 2024 by the appeal committee of CONMEBOL, which had chosen to hold its continental championship in the United States for the second time.<\/p>\n
In October, CAS granted a suspension of the sanctions while the further appeal was heard. This hearing was held remotely on March 28 and on Tuesday, CAS confirmed it had rejected the players\u2019 and Uruguay federation members\u2019 claims of self-defence, stating: \u201cThe principle of self-defence does not apply and \u2026 the conduct of the players constituted a voluntary, violent and unjustified action.\u201d<\/p>\n
The original sanctions for players and Uruguay officials have been upheld in full.<\/p>\n
(Top photo: Steve Limentani\/ISI Photos\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five Uruguay players, including Liverpool forward Darwin Nunez and Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s Rodrigo Bentancur, have had appeals against bans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16198,7,16199,3368,49,48,3373,14807,16197],"class_list":{"0":"post-47241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-copa-america","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-international-football","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-tottenham-hotspur","16":"tag-uruguay"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114501593816175449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}