Chile’s Jara gets three-match ban for finger incident
SANTIAGO, June 29, (RTRS): Chile defender Gonzalo Jara will miss the rest of the Copa America after being suspended for three matches on Sunday for sticking his finger up an opponent’s backside and feigning injury during a match.
CONMEBOL, the governing body of South American football, said in a statement it was suspending Jara for “unsporting behaviour”. It also fined the Chilean FA $7,500.
Jara will miss Chile’s semi-final clash with Peru on Monday and, depending on the result of that match, either the final or third-place playoff.
He will also be ineligible for Chile’s opening match of the qualifying campaign for the 2018 World Cup.
Television images from Chile’s quarter-final against Uruguay showed Jara grabbing the backside of Uruguay striker Edinson Cavani and sticking his finger up it.
Cavani responded by gently pushing Jara away but the Chilean fell to the ground as if he had been punched.
The referee booked both players. It was Cavani’s second yellow card and he was sent off.
Jara’s gesture was the main talking point from the match and has been dubbed “the finger of God” in Chile, an echo of Argentina captain Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” goal from the 1986 World Cup.
Uruguay had a second player dismissed in the closing stages of the match, prompting a fracas involving most of the players on the pitch, the coaching staff, the match officials and even a touchline cameraman.
Both teams lodged complaints with CONMEBOL.
Speaking shortly before the verdict was made public, Chile coach Jorge Sampaoli said the handling of the case set a dangerous precedent.
“If we’re going to start lodging complaints that don’t have anything to do with the referee’s match report it’s going to get very complicated because we are going to have different analyses after every match,” he told a news conference.
“We’re going to have to be clear from now on that everyone will be judged in the same way, because if this is a precedent and leads to a suspension on the basis of a post-match complaint, everyone’s going to start doing it.”
Uruguay’s FA welcomed the verdict and said it would work to defend its seven national team players accused by Chile of aggressive behaviour towards them and the match officials.
World Cup runners-up Argentina came to the Copa America in Chile as favourites and were expected to put plenty of goals past their opponents.
Instead they are the lowest scoring team to reach the semi-finals in which they clash with Paraguay in the southern city of Concepcion on Tuesday (2330 GMT).
“It’s terrible what it’s costing me to get a goal,” Lionel Messi, accustomed to breaking scoring records in Spain and Europe with Barcelona, said after Argentina beat Colombia 5-4 on penalties following a 0-0 draw in their quarterfinal.
Argentina’s attacking game is improving with each match but defences at the tournament, especially in their tougher half of the draw, have been hard, putting many men behind the ball to handle the likes of Messi and Sergio Aguero.