Adidas: We will still work with Suarez

BERLIN, Germany – German sportswear maker Adidas said Sunday, July 13, that it would start using Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez again despite his 4-month ban for biting a World Cup rival.

“We will continue to work with Luis Suarez,” Adidas boss Herbert Hainer told the SID sports news agency, an Agence France-Presse subsidiary.

“But we will talk with him and his management about what we expect of him on and off the pitch.”

Hainer called Suarez “one of the best strikers in the world.”

“It’s not for nothing that FC Barcelona put him under contract,” he said.

“But his behavior in the match against Italy was not acceptable. That is why the FIFA penalty is justified and you can’t sugarcoat that or tolerate it.”

But Haider noted “how much pressure the players in such a World Cup are under.”

“Furthermore, he apologized,” he said, justifying the company’s decision.

Adidas had in late June announced that it would stop using Suarez in its adverts following FIFA’s levelling of a 4-month ban from football activities against Suarez for biting Italian Giorgio Chiellini.

FIFA banned Suarez for 9 internationals and from football for 4 months and also fined him 100,000 Swiss francs (US$112,000).

As well as being a major FIFA sponsor for almost 4 decades, the German company is a personal sponsor of Suarez.

Suarez served bans of 7 and 10 matches for biting after an incident while playing for Ajax in 2010 and Liverpool last year.

On Friday, July 11, he agreed a move from Liverpool to Barcelona that British media said was worth £75 million ($128m , EUR95 million). – Rappler.com