FIFA won't punish Zuniga or rescind Thiago Silva's suspension
Baku, July 8 (AZERTAC). The FIFA Disciplinary Committee announced Monday that it cannot take action to punish Colombian soccer player Camilo Zuniga for kneeing Brazil's Neymar in the back and fracturing a vertebra, and rejected the request by the Brazilian Soccer Confederation, or CBF, to rescind the yellow card for Brazilian captain Thiago Silva.
The president of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, Claudio Sulser, said in a communique that he "deeply regrets the incident and the grave consequences for Neymar's health" from the kneeing he was dealt by the Colombian defender that fractured a vertebra.
But he added that, after analyzing the case and the extensive documentation submitted by the CBF to the FIFA, punishing Zuñiga is not an option.
"In this specific case, the Disciplinary Committee can take no retrospective decision, since the incident involving the Colombian player Camilo Zuñiga Mosquera did not escape the notice of the referees, the first of the accumulated conditions necessary for applying article 77 a) of the disciplinary code," he said.
"At the same time, article 77 b) of the code, which enables the Discipliniary Committee to correct obvious errors in the referee's disciplinary decisions, cannot be applied in this case either, since the referee - the Spaniard Carlos Velasco Carballo - did not show a yellow or red card to the player," the communique said.
Article 77 b) says that the committee can only correct obvious errors in disciplinary decisions in cases of confused identity, when the referee shows the yellow or red card to the wrong player.
With regard to Brazil's request that the yellow card for Brazilian defender Thiago Silva be rescinded, "the president has come to the conclusion that the Disciplinary Committee cannot consider the case, because it has no legal basis for doing so," with the result that the Canarinha central defender will be unable to play Tuesday against Germany in the World Cup semifinal. EFE
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