Rodrigo Bentancur receives four match Uruguay ban for Colombia fracas

Rodrigo Bentancur, who got into a heap of trouble for fighting and throwing a water bottle into a crowd after a Copa America match against Colombia at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami this summer, will be banned for Uruguay’s next four international matches, starting with the upcoming international break.

The news comes courtesy of ESPN Uruguay, which also reports a five match ban for Liverpool’s Darwin Nuñez. Mathías Olivera, Ronald Araujo and José María Giménez, the other sanctioned Uruguay players, all will receive three match bans. A number of other players were issued fines.

To my knowledge, Uruguay has not yet announced their match squad for the international break fixtures against Guatemala and Paraguay, but it seems unlikely that Bentancur would’ve been called up anyway as he’s still recovering from a concussion he picked up against Leicester. The ESPN report suggests he’ll be suspended for the October international break as well, potentially returning to the Uruguay squad against, ironically, Colombia in November. The Athletic also notes that Bentancur was fined $16k for his role int he melee.

We have not yet heard if there will be any further sanctions from FIFA that would impact Bentancur’s domestic schedule; there was talk of some investigations, but nothing has come from those yet and at this point Lolo would be available for Tottenham as soon as he’s deemed fit and available by Ange Postecoglou.

Bentancur was part of a post-match scrum involving Colombia and Uruguay players and fans in this summer’s Copa America that spilled over into a section of the crowd after Colombian fans infiltrated a section of the stadium that contained Uruguay players’ families. Bentancur was caught on camera throwing two water bottles into the crowd, one of which hit and bloodied a Uruguayan team staffer that was in the crowd trying to control the fighting.