It’s a sad fact that, barring anything extraordinary happening in the next two weeks, the lasting image of Brazil 2014 will be that of Luis Suarez sinking his teeth into the shoulder of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini.
Just when we thought it was safe for players to take on Suarez without the fear of being the victim of his vampire-like attacks, the Uruguayan proves yet again that he has a seemingly uncontrollable taste for controversy.
He, his Uruguay team-mates and fans may well accuse the press of making a meal of it but this is not something that has been blown out of proportion by the media.
Like his other two biting incidents, it was plain to see for everyone, and the reaction of disbelief and condemnation has been worldwide.
Previously he has taken a bite out of PSV Eindhoven’s Otman Bakkal while playing for Ajax in 2010, and dined out on the shoulder of Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic while playing for Liverpool last year.
His punishment was seven and ten-game bans respectively.
We can all have a good laugh at the dark comical side of what has been called Jaws III, but it is not funny.
Suarez clearly has some kind of psychological problem which leads to these urges to attack rival players, usually in high-pressure games.
Something flips in his mind and he clearly needs help.
There is no doubt that Suarez is currently one of the best footballers in the world.
Last season it appeared he had changed his ways, scoring 31 goals for Liverpool as they pushed Manchester City all the way, finishing second in the English Premier League.
He was deservedly voted the PFA Player of the Year and the Football Writers Association Footballer of the Year, two highly acclaimed awards.
Now this.
We have seen shocking behaviour on a football field before.
Zinedine Zidane, in my opinion the greatest footballer to have walked the planet, head butted Marco Materazzi in an extraordinary attack which left its mark on the 2006 World Cup.
But this is somehow different.
There is an argument that Suarez hasn’t actually seriously injured anyone but biting is totally abhorrent and he has been responsible for three high-profile cases.
FIFA have charged him with contravening its disciplinary code and they have no option but to ban him from the rest of the World Cup and beyond, because there can be no plausible defence for his actions.
Rolling around on the floor clutching his mouth trying to claim that somehow he was the victim and Chiellini had shouldered him in the teeth was laughable.
It added insult to injury and so, internationally his future looks bleak.
But what about his club career?
Apart from bringing the World Cup into disrepute he has also let down Liverpool, particularly Brendan Rodgers who stood by him when the player was clearly trying to engineer a move away from Anfield to Arsenal last summer.
Before Tuesday’s incident Suarez was high on the wanted list of Barcelona and Real Madrid, but will they want to take a gamble with a recidivist, assuming Liverpool will now want to get rid?
The answer to that should be ‘no’ but football clubs can be shameless when dealing with pariahs, particularly if they can get you 30 goals a season, and they may well try and negotiate a much reduced fee.
Liverpool might decide to hang on to him in the hope that they can find a way to help him, but past behaviour and this latest act of insanity suggests that could be a long haul with no guarantees that he won’t revert to type.
This is actually a sad story of a seriously flawed genius with an unexplainable and bizarre tendency to self-destruct.
However, FIFA have a duty to take him out of the game with a lengthy ban from internationals and maybe even a temporary ban from football worldwide, although that is unlikely to happen.
What Suarez needs, if he is to have any future in the game, is time to seek psychiatric treatment because this time he really has bitten off more than he can chew.
