Thursday 25 April 2013 18:23, UK
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has expressed the club's dismay at the "severity" of the 10-match ban handed to Luis Suarez.
Team-mate Jose Reina has criticised the ban, calling it "absurd, out of proportion and unfair". "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."
