Barça hope CAS appeal will free Pique for Atletico
Barcelona are set to present their case in front of the Court of Arbitration for Sport as they seek to reduce Gerard Pique’s suspension. The Blaugrana will do so on Wednesday and hope that the CAS don’t have time to make a decision before the end of the week, which would free the defender up to play against Atletico at the Vicente Calderon.
It may be that the CAS decide to keep Pique’s four game ban in place, but if there’s no decision immediately, Luis Enrique may have the player available for this weekend’s hugely important fixture. The number of injuries in defence mean it would be beneficial to have Pique available.
FC Barcelona are convinced that neither the referee nor his assistant for the Spanish Super Cup game against Athletic could possibly have heard Pique say what they are accusing him of. The official report says he was sent off for saying “I s—t on your wh—e mother” to the assistant referee. Pique, however, insists that is not true.
Barça say what he actually said was “That’s out of play!” followed by a variation of “La puta madre”, which literally translates as ‘wh—e mother’, but would have been less personal and born out of frustration, not anger at an official.
