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November 17, 2009

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Home » Sports » Soccer

Maradona gets 2-month ban

ARGENTINA coach Diego Maradona was banned for two months and fined more than US$24,000 on Sunday after a foul-mouthed outburst at the end of last month's decisive World Cup qualifier in Uruguay.

Maradona, 49, who faced a potential ban from some of his team's matches at next year's World Cup, apologized for his behavior and showed remorse, soccer's governing body FIFA said.

He was sanctioned after an expletive-filled rant when interviewed on the touchline and produced another outburst in the post-match media conference, which was broadcast live on several television networks. Maradona told the media to "suck it and keep on sucking."

Named as Argentina coach 13 months ago after fighting off drug addiction, alcohol problems and obesity, Maradona appeared in person before the disciplinary tribunal behind closed doors at FIFA headquarters.

"The FIFA disciplinary committee ... decided today to impose a two-month ban on taking part in any football related activity and a 25,000 Swiss francs (US$24,630) fine on the head coach of Argentina Diego Maradona," a FIFA statement said. "The committee took into consideration the apologies and the sincere remorse shown by Maradona in its decision, which was communicated to him at the end of the meeting.

"The committee stressed that any breach of this decision or any repetition of a similar incident would mean that stronger sanctions would have to be imposed in the future."

FIFA said the sanction would start immediately and run until January 15. It means Maradona will not have to miss any competitive internationals, although Argentina is due to face the Czech Republic in a friendly at a venue to be decided next month.



 

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