Biting incidents prompt ire

Retired stars want lengthy suspensions El Salvador’s Derby Carrillo (18) holds the United States’ Jozy Altidore as he reacts to an incident with El Salvador’s Henry Romero, lying on the ground, during a CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal July 19 in Philadelphia.

would assume that CONCACAF will take a particularly hard stance given their insistence on the captains speaking before each game about the importance of acting in an appropriate manner and that ‘our children are watching.’ “

Victor Montagliani, president of the Confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean Association Football, said a subset of the group’s disciplinary committee will examine the report from the match commissioner, Randolph Harris of Barbados, and share it with the involved federations along

with other evidence. The subset group then will decide whether discipline is warranted.

Uruguayan forward Luis Suarez was suspended three times for bites: seven Dutch league matches in 2010 (PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal), 10 games in England in 2013 (Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic) and four months and nine international matches (Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini during the 2014 World Cup).

“That set the precedent, and everything else will be longer than that,” predicted McManaman, a former Liverpool and England

star who now is an analyst for ESPN and BT Sport. “It’s incredible. It’s been so unusual. We’ve had a raft of them in the last four to five years. Beforehand, you can’t remember anything like that going on.”

Romero also twisted Altidore’s nipple during the jostling ahead of a corner kick. While the Americans had stinging criticism for the behavior, U.S. coach Bruce Arena said he couldn’t fault Canadian referee Drew Fischer, a Major League Soccer regular, for not noticing the incidents away from the ball ahead of restarts.

MATT ROURKE — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS