Atletico Madrid’s Mario Suarez and Miranda could find themselves in hot water after seemingly making offensive remarks against Serbian referee Milorad Mazic.
Suarez blasted Mazic following Atletico Madrid’s 0-0 draw with bitter rivals Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
The 28-year-old picked up a booking and is to miss next week’s second-leg match through suspension.
However, he risks much worse than that after claiming UEFA should not have put a Serbian in charge of such an important match.
“The referee was very bad,” Suarez said. “You can’t have a Serbian in charge of a Champions League quarter-final. That isn’t taking it seriously enough.”
“I hope that in the second leg, the referee will be better with more fluid and normal decisions,” he added. “The referee wasn’t up to it, but they made mistakes as we do. The game was very evenly balanced, we know each other so well and the tie is still open.”
Suarez quickly tried to backtrack on social media, taking to Twitter to explain his comments.
“I’d like to apologize if anyone was offended by my words after the match, that wasn’t my intention,” he said. “I wanted to say that in a match of this magnitude you should designate a referee from a major league.”
However, he was backed up by Brazilian international Miranda.
“I am not going to speak about him [the referee], but I think a referee from a minor league shouldn’t take charge of these type of games,” Miranda said.
Real Madrid’s Dani Carvajal also faces a UEFA sanction after punching Mario Mandzukic and allegedly biting the Croatian as they clashed in the second-half.
“I see that after the game I have been accused of biting a rival player, I want to state clearly that I haven’t bitten anyone, nor did I try to,” Carvajal said on Twitter.
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