BRASILIA, July 6-The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has suspended Rodrigo Santos Paiva, the media officer of the Brazil national team, for four matches and fined him 10,000 Swiss Franc (about 11,200 U.S. dollars) following an incident that occurred during half-time of the World Cup match between Brazil and Chile.
After the breathtaking round of 16 match in which Brazil won after penalty shootout, Paiva was accused of punching Chile striker Mauricio Pinilla at half-time.
A scuffle broke out as the two teams headed to the dressing rooms in the Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte.
Brazil media said Paiva and Chile assistant manager Sebastian Beccacece were involved in a confrontation which ended in the Brazil official punching Pinilla.
Paiva said there was widespread pushing between the two squads: “It was not just me. Pinilla came towards me and I just defended myself. I reacted by pushing him.”
Pinilla, who plays for Italian side Cagliari, came off the bench and nearly won the match for Chile but his shot in the last seconds of the match struck the cross-bar.
The striker was then one of three Chile players to miss penalties in the shoot-out, which Brazil won 3-2 to go through to the quarter-finals.
After reviewing the video footage and pictures of the incident, the FIFA disciplinary panel came to the conclusion that Paiva breached art. 48 par. 1 d) of the FIFA Disciplinary Code (FDC) and decided to suspend him for four matches – three of which Paiva will definitely have to serve and the fourth subject to certain conditions.
The suspensions are applied as follows: the automatic one-match suspension was already served on July 4; the next two match suspensions shall be served in Brazil’s remaining two World Cup matches (the semi-final Brazil vs. Germany on July 8 followed by the final or the third-place match); the fourth match suspension would only be applied if Paiva were to commit another infringement during the two-year probationary period that he must now serve.
If the fourth match suspension were to be applied, it would be in addition to any sanction pronounced with the new infringement committed during the probationary period.
