PARLIAMENT | Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz has defended the decision to appoint Barcelona striker Luis Suarez, who is notorious for his "biting" antics on the pitch, as an ambassador for Tourism Malaysia. 

"Do not punish people based on what happened in the past. 

"Some of the opposition lawmakers behave badly, but they have their supporters too," Nazri told Hee Loy Sian (PKR-Petaling Jaya Selatan) during the Minister's Question Time. 

Hee had questioned the ministry's decision to engage Suarez on a year-long collaboration, given the player's "disciplinary problems" and notorious record for biting other players and ensuing suspensions from matches. 

"If he (Suarez) is that bad, he would not have 25.3 million followers on Instagram, 18.9 million followers on Facebook, and 12.4 million followers on Twitter. 

"These statistics only show that he is popular. We are not looking at promoting (Malaysia) in Spain, but the 445 million viewers in China and 225 million viewers in Asia," Nazri said. 

"Overall, we have 889 million viewers that follow La Liga."

Through the cooperation with the FC Barcelona, for which Suarez plays, the Tourism Malaysia advertisement will be screened at 18 stadiums during La Liga matches, he added. 

Following the partnership earlier this month, the football star had also said that he can't wait to sink his teeth into promoting Malaysia to the world. 

"It is an honour and privilege to be able to work with Malaysia and I'm looking forward to embarking on this journey to introduce the exotic country to the world. 

"Especially its rich culture and heritage, to all my fans, and make them fans of Malaysia," Suarez had said in a statement. 

Nazri also said the government spent a total RM7.5 million for the whole campaign, which included RM4.4 million on advertisements.

"RM3.1 million was paid for the costs of the four videos with a 60-second duration each, featuring Suarez promoting tourism destinations, culture, food and traditional sports in Malaysia via his social media," he said.

This means that the striker was paid RM775,000 for each advertisement.