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Uruguay union looks to get Suarez's FIFA ban annulled

A woman passes a wall painting of Uruguay's Luis Suarez on the Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, June 27, 2014. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares (Reuters)

MONTEVIDEO (Reuters) - Uruguay's players' union plans to ask FIFA to annul its nine-match international ban on Luis Suarez for biting an opponent at last year's World Cup in light of investigations into corruption at world football's governing body. The union, in consultation with Barcelona striker Suarez, has decided to present a petition to the world players' union FIFPro to be raised to FIFA's executive committee, its legal adviser Ernesto Liotti said on Thursday. "With these facts (of alleged corruption), FIFA's decisions in the last few years have come under a mantle of suspicion," Liotti told Reuters referring to the arrests of top FIFA officials in Zurich this week. "We have no proof that this (sanction) was made within the framework of illegal actions but nothing guarantees us that it wasn't." Liotti said one of the arrested officials, the now suspended Venezuelan Football Federation president Rafael Esquivel, was on the FIFA disciplinary committee that determined the sanctions handed down to Suarez. The 28-year-old former Liverpool striker was kicked out of the tournament in Brazil for biting Italy's Giorgio Chiellini during their group match, banned from all football for four months and for nine competitive international matches. He will miss champions Uruguay's Copa America campaign in Chile, which begins on June 11. (Reporting by Malena Castaldi; Writing by Rex Gowar; Editing by Tom Hayward)