LIVERPOOL keeper Pepe Reina has labelled the 10-match ban dished out to Luis Suarez as “absurd, out of proportion and unfair”.
The Spanish shot-stopper also accused the FA of “having it in” for the Reds’ top scorer.
“I consider myself a friend of Luis. He is being treated differently, I don’t know if it’s because he’s Uruguayan or because he’s had a previous episode like this,” Reina told Spanish radio station Cadena Cope.
“He knows full well that what he did was wrong but a 10-game ban seems to me absurd, out of proportion and unfair. It seems that the people making the decisions have got it in for Luis a little bit. That’s the way I see it. I am not justifying what he did but the punishment is very disproportionate.
“He knows he was in the wrong, he knows he has made a mistake but the treatment is completely out of place.
“Those who know Luis know that he is the complete opposite (off the pitch), he is a magnificent person and great team-mate.
“But because of the way he plays, he is aggressive and very competitive, he plays like a street player and sometimes the way he is gets him into trouble.”
Reina also described sections of the English media of being sensationalist and “very very very very hypocritical”.
Asked if he felt there was xenophobia in England, Reina said: “There is hypocrisy, I don’t know if it’s so much xenophobia, but a different yardstick is used.
“Some players are treated differently to others. In the racism cases: the one with proof (against him, John Terry) got a four-game ban and Luis got eight matches.
“There have been other times and it seems there is a rule that if the referee has seen it then nothing further can be done.”
