Fifa Reject Luis Suarez Appeal Against Four Month Ban for Biting Giorgio Chiellini

Fifa have upheld Luis Suarez's four month ban from all football for biting Giorgio Chiellini after rejecting an appeal lodged by the player and the Uruguayan FA.

The Liverpool striker was hit with the heavy sanction after biting Chiellini during a World Cup group fixture with Italy in June.

Suarez was also handed a nine match international ban for the incident and a 100,000 Swiss franc (£66,000) fine.

Both the player and the Uruguayan FA can further pursue the case through the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

A statement from Fifa read: "The FIFA Appeal Committee has decided to reject the appeals lodged by both the Uruguayan player Luis Suárez and the Uruguayan FA, and to confirm the decision rendered by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee on 25 June 2014 in its entirety.

"The terms of the decision taken by the FIFA Appeal Committee were communicated to the player and the Uruguayan FA today.

The relevant decision is not yet final and binding, i.e. an appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) is still possible (cf. art. 67 par. 1 of the FIFA Statutes) by the player and/or the Uruguayan FA, subject to certain conditions."

The disgraced striker is expected to leave Liverpool for Barcelona this summer but will be unable to take part in any footballing activities until early November.

The 27-year-old will also serve a stadium ban during that time, preventing him from attending his side's games.

Immediately following the incident the Uruguayan FA and Suarez were defiant in the face of condemnation facing their talismanic striker. In his defence to Fifa's disciplinary committee the striker claimed he stumbled into Chiellini and accidentally "hit his face" on the Italian's shoulder, while Uruguayan FA president Wilmar Valdez later described the sanctions by football's governing body as "totally exaggerated."

However, Suarez would later apologise to Chiellini and "the entire football family" for the incident and vowed "there will never again be another incident like this."