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Luis Suarez's lawyer convinced the CAS will reduce Barcelona striker's ban

Daniel Cravo thinks appeal will be successful on Friday

Tom Sheen
Friday 08 August 2014 08:52 BST
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Luis Suarez holds his teeth while Giorgio Chiellini lies in pain
Luis Suarez holds his teeth while Giorgio Chiellini lies in pain

Luis Suarez's lawyer Daniel Cravo is convinced the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will reduce his lengthy ban for biting Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup.

The Barcelona striker was banned for nine international matches and four months from "all football activity", as well as being fined 100,000 Swiss francs, for the now infamous incident in Brazil.

Suarez is set to appear in front of the CAS in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 8 August after they granted him an "express" tribunal - a decision is expected in the following days.

The £75m man has already been through one appeal with Fifa, who upheld their original ruling. Suarez is not even allowed to train and would not make his Barcelona debut until the weekend of 25 October.

"I think Fifa wanted to show they could take action," Cravo told Radio Globo.

"There was a dissatisfaction with how other incidents had been treated at the World Cup and Suarez paid for them. Not even the sanction of [Zinedine] Zidane in 2006 or those of Leonardo and [Mauro] Tassotti in 1994 were as severe.

"Is the Suarez incident the worst in the history of the World Cup? I believe that the sanction which affects his work at a club level will be revoked. There is no precedent in history to justify it.

"I am going to try and reduce his ban with Uruguay - nine games is too much and would stop him from playing until 2016."

Cravo pointed out that in the past the CAS have not been afraid to overturn Fifa decisions.

"[The CAS] is totally different and on various occasions in the past they have taken completely different decisions to those which have been taken by Fifa," he added.

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