Ángel Di María has been suspended for the next four games, various media in France report on Wednesday evening. The attacker of Paris Saint-Germain will be penalized for spitting in the direction of Álvaro González in the game against Olympique Marseille (0-1 defeat) on Sunday, September 13. The disciplinary committee of competition organizer LFP has not yet ruled on the quarrel between Neymar and Álvaro during the same game.

Di María’s suspension comes into effect immediately, meaning he misses the next league matches against Stade Reims, Angers, Nîmes and Dijon. In minute 36 of the much-discussed league game, Di María walked past Álvaro, who claimed to be spat by the Argentinian. It was not completely clear from the camera images whether that actually happened, but the disciplinary committee has now established that this was indeed the case. The Argentinian is the fifth player to be suspended in the aftermath of the much-discussed league game. Layvin Kurzawa, as pivotal in the fights that arose during injury time, was most severely penalized with a six-game suspension. He has already served two of them.

Other players who were suspended from the game are Jordan Amavi (three matches, two of which are out), Neymar (two matches, both out), Leandro Paredes (two matches, both out) and Darío Benedetto (one match, both out). There is a chance that Neymar will get another suspension following his fight with Álvaro and the same applies to the center-back of Olympique Marseille. Neymar accuses his opponent of calling him a ‘mono hijo de puta’, meaning ‘monkey bastard’ during the match. The Brazilian, who was one of the five players who received a red card, is accused of shouting something like ‘shit Chinese’ to Hiroki Sakai, the Japanese right back of Olympique Marseille. The Spanish television network Gol reported last week that Neymar had also made a homophobic comment to Álvaro. After studying the video images, it was concluded that he called ‘puto maricon’, which means something like ‘dirty fagot’, although there is no definitive answer.

Due to the complexity of the case, the LFP will probably only follow a judgment on Neymar and Álvaro in a week. In any case, the latter denies having made a racist remark. According to RMC he is very upset by the noise; he has received death threats and was recently called a racist by a supporter of his own club. On Monday, Álvaro spoke to the ultras of Olympique Marseille in tears and vowed not to call Neymar a ‘monkey’. Reportedly, the Spaniard would like to have a personal conversation with the star player of PSG, so that the latter can ‘admit his lie’. Sources within the locker room state that Neymar has tried through his network in Spain to obtain the phone number of Álvaro, a former player of several clubs in LaLiga. It is not clear whether that means that he is also open to a conversation.