Uruguay may be out of the World Cup, beaten 2-0 by Colombia on Saturday, but they are still making headlines as the fall-out from Luis Suarez's four-month ban for biting Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini continues.
The latest to wade into the row over the incident is none other than the president of the South American country, Jose Mujica, who made his feelings about the player's punishment as the rest of the team returned home.
Asked what his lasting memory of the World Cup would be, the Press Association reports that Mujica came up with a colourful reply. "Fifa are a bunch of old sons of bitches," he announced, before covering his mouth to feign shock at what he had just said. When asked if he wanted to rectify his comments, the smiling president told journalists: "Publish it."
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Not content with that outburst the 79-year-old went on to call the ban "fascist" when he was pressed further. Although he did accept that some punishment was warranted.
Mujica, a former guerilla fighter who has led the country of 3.3 million for four years, is not the only Uruguayan to take issue with Fifa's punishment. National team captain Diego Lugano has branded the four-month suspension an act of "barbarity" that breaches the Liverpool striker's human rights.
He claimed that it was not fair to ban Suarez from football stadia and prevent him from working for four months.
"Uruguay signalled their defiance by hanging his shirt up in the dressing room in the Maracana before Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to Colombia and posting photographs of it on Twitter," reports The Times. But it did little good as they were knocked out of the tournament.
The Uruguayan FA has told Fifa it wants to appeal against the ban, and over the weekend it emerged that Suarez's defence against the charge of biting, the third time he has been charged for the offence, was that he had lost his balance and fell onto Chiellini's shoulder.
The Fifa disciplinary panel, which studied 24 camera angles, did not agree and described the bite as "deliberate, intentional and without provocation".
