Australia, France and Denmark Captains Have Asked FIFA To Lift Paolo Guerrero's Ban

The captains of Australia, France and Denmark have urged FIFA to allow banned Peru striker Paolo Guerrero to play in the World Cup.

The Peruvians are going into their first World Cup for 36 years without captain and all-time top scorer after he was slapped with a ban for testing positive for cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine.

The 33-year-old was provisionally suspended on 3 November with FIFA then issuing officially announcing a one-year suspension on 7 December.

Guerrero, who plays for Flamengo, claims the cocaine was in tea he consumed and got his ban halved by Fifa's appeal committee, only for it to then rise to 14 months when the World Anti-Doping Agency got involved and appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Yet, there's a plea for him to get to experience playing at the showpiece in what will likely be his only opportunity to do so.

As per BBC, Australia's Mile Jedinak, Denmark's Simon Kjaer and France's Hugo Lloris, all skippering their countries in C, have all signed a FIFPro document asking for the governing body to make a "temporary interruption" to the suspension.

It's almost unheard of in the game, but the trio are showing support for the former Hamburg striker, who is still awaiting the final verdict as to whether he will be going to Russia.

Guerrero has 86 international caps and 32 goals to his name for Peru.