<\/p>\n
FILE – Argentina’s Leandro Paredes (5) knocks down Spain’s Gavi (9) during scuffle after the World Cup final soccer match between Spain and Argentina in East Rutherford, N.J., near New York, Sunday, July 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Julio Cortez\/AP Photo\/Julio Cortez<\/p>\n
FILE – Argentina’s Leandro Paredes (5) knocks down Spain’s Gavi (9) as Argentina coaches, right, scuffle with Spain’s Eric Garc\u00eda (4) after the World Cup final soccer match between Spain and Argentina in East Rutherford, N.J., near New York, Sunday, July 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Julio Cortez\/AP Photo\/Julio Cortez<\/p>\n
FILE – Argentina’s Leandro Paredes (5) kicks at Spain’s Eric Garcia (4) as assistant referee Tomaz Klancnik, of Slovenia, tries to break up a scuffle after the World Cup final soccer match between Spain and Argentina in East Rutherford, N.J., near New York, Sunday, July 19, 2026.<\/p>\n
Julio Cortez\/AP Photo\/Julio Cortez<\/p>\n
GENEVA (AP) \u2014 FIFA banned three Argentina players on Friday, including a 10-match suspension for midfielder Leandro Paredes, for striking Spain opponents after losing the World Cup final.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The ban for Paredes \u2014 who grabbed Spain’s Eric Garcia by the throat and pushed Gavi to the ground \u2014 ranks with the FIFA sanctions for Uruguay forward Luis Su\u00e1rez in 2014 as among the most severe in World Cup history.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Argentina defender Nahuel Molina was handed a seven-game ban while Thiago Almada was given a one-game suspension. FIFA imposed fines of $90,000 on Paredes and Molina, and $30,000 for Almada.<\/p>\n
The ban for Paredes is effectively a one-year expulsion from the Argentina team as the FIFA calendar for national team schedules includes 10 games through June 2027.<\/p>\n
All of those games could be friendlies with no competitive games currently scheduled.<\/p>\n
Spain’s Gavi also banned for game vs England<\/p>\n
Gavi also was banned for one game, which is a Nations League match for Spain against England at Wembley on Sept. 26.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
An Argentina coach, Roberto Ayala, also got a three-game ban and $30,000 fine.<\/p>\n
The Argentine Football Association was fined $110,000 for a range of incidents during the World Cup including players carrying a political banner about the Falkland Islands after the semifinal win against England, and discriminatory chants by fans.<\/p>\n
AFA also was ordered by FIFA to spend $100,000 on anti-racism projects. Argentina received $34 million in World Cup prize money from FIFA.<\/p>\n
Argentina expected to appeal<\/p>\n
AFA can appeal the longer sanctions and fines to FIFA, and likely after at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u201cThe AFA legal department will, in a timely manner, request from FIFA the grounds for the reviewable rulings in order to file appeals with the governing body\u2019s appeal committee, while retaining the future option of appealing to the CAS as a final recourse,\u201d the federation said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez and Simunic cases<\/p>\n
In 2014, Su\u00e1rez was banned from all soccer for four months, including for his new club Barcelona, and eight more competition games for Uruguay for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini in a World Cup group stage game in Brazil.<\/p>\n
Paredes’ 10-game ban equals that in 2013 for Josip Simunic of Croatia after winning a World Cup qualifying playoff. Simunic used a megaphone to lead fans chanting a slogan used by the country’s pro-Nazi regime during World War II.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The on-field clashes at last month’s final in East Rutherford, New Jersey \u2014 which were charged by FIFA as assault cases \u2014 came after Argentina lost a testy final to Spain where it was mostly outplayed and barely created a scoring chance.<\/p>\n
Spain forward Ferran Torres scored the only goal in the second period of extra time, after Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez was sent off.<\/p>\n
FIFA disciplinary judges also ordered Argentina to play its next home game in a stadium limited to 50% of capacity. FIFA deferred a second stadium sanction and a $100,000 for probationary periods.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
AP Sports Writers Ken Maguire in London and Carlos Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed to this report<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – Argentina’s Leandro Paredes (5) knocks down Spain’s Gavi (9) during scuffle after the World Cup final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4027,28459,943,927,934,728,28460,23702,3044,2042,1561,1562,1558,4693,1559,6854,24395,17,2899],"class_list":["post-73837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-argentina","tag-argentina-players-banned-paredes-fifa-world-cup","tag-enzo-fernandez","tag-eric-garcia","tag-ferran-torres","tag-gavi","tag-giorgio-chiellini","tag-leandro-paredes","tag-luis-suarez","tag-nahuel-molina","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32553-ap-online-soccer-news","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-42059-world-cup-text","tag-roberto-ayala","tag-spain","tag-thiago-almada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}