Despite knowing how stupid FA can get, some of us thought the overwhelming lack of evidence against Luis Suarez would let him off. Then why was he banned when most commentators thought he wouldn’t be? Guess only the powers that be know the truth.
The statement released by FA Luis was found guilty under rules E3(1) and E3(2). From what I could make of those two rules, E3(1) is more about insulting language, bringing the game to disrepute etc. and E3(2) comes in effect when any insult dished out under E3(1) pertains to someone’s race, ethnicity, nationality etc. If E3(2), is applicable, the punishment that would have been laid out in E3(1) would be doubled. Thus, as per the statement, what Luis said to Evra was a) insulting and b) the insult was derived from color of Evra’s skin.
Insulting?! I mean if that rule was implemented to the T, I’m sure more than 90% of Premiership players would be serving bans on most match-days. And some of the referees that FA have used this season are both a) insulting to any common man’s intelligence, and b) bring the game to disrepute.
Luis’s argument has been that he used the term Negrito to address Evra and that it is not offensive in his native language. Moreover, he has been upfront about what he said otherwise no other camera had picked up what the conversation was. In fact, no other United player had picked it up either. So FA has heard two sides. Evra says that Luis called him in a racist manner. Luis, although he could have denied it altogether, said he used a used spanish phrase with acceptable spanish words – Por Que, Negrito!
What’s appalling is that FA had absolutely no proof that Luis said anything racist. None whatsoever except what Evra said. None till the point Suarez actually told them what he said and fair play to him for being honest and upfront telling people that he had nothing to hide. In hindsight, may be he could have asked FA to take a hike and find evidence for themselves but in all earnestness, I am proud of Luis Suarez for he knew he didn’t do anything wrong and he thought he should be honest and truthful.
Apparently, the FA thinks what is offensive in one language is offensive in all. Well, on that logic if I call the FA a ‘dick’ in Hindi (my native tongue), it should only mean a Swedish town to the gentlemen and they should not take offense in it.
What gave me the most consolation on a night like last was LFC’s statement in support of Luis. It was one of the most brilliantly worded expletive I ever read. It implied Evra is unreliable, that FA is two-faced, that FA’s decision was pre-meditated. It takes a lot of courage to fight lies with truth when supporting lies can be the populist way. Of course, as we would expect on any day, LFC have more than that courage, while FA doesn’t have a drop of it.
May be it was the scandalous nature of the allegation that ‘pre-meditated’ FA’s actions. Everyone has been talking about how they stood up against Blatter and his remarks regarding racism being a trivial issue. Here they had a player who was accused of racism and they couldn’t afford to portray themselves as weak at home. The silver lining was that the player was not English. They know that the charges are not going to hold in an appeal. The ban would most probably be overturned. I don’t know the details but I’m hopeful that LFC might even take FA to court on this one. The FA knew all this but they couldn’t make themselves appear weak in fight against a global evil. So what if they had to brand an innocent foreigner for life! The other side of the case would have been to let Suarez off and to levy charges against Evra for defamation. Then the problem would have been that a black sportsperson suffers racial abuse from a foreigner but no action was taken against the foreigner because of lack of evidence but on the other hand the black sportsperson is charged with defamatory things. Everybody would have further amplified and translated that episode saying England and FA are not friendly to people of color and that they need to carry their own cameras to record every second so that they have evidence for the next time something racist is hurled at them. Surely the FA could not have afforded that sort of PR. In the end, they have risked the ignominy of an overturned decision and chances of further lawsuits in order to be populists. Wonder how much is it going to cost Vauxhall, or whoever else, next year!
In the meantime, there is one small request to the LFC Family. We know Luis is not racist. We are going to fight for it to be proved. But the one step we need to take to protect the image of this Family is by not being racists ourselves. I’ve read all sorts of vile messages on various posts and discussion groups on internet. Surely we can’t do much worse in this fight by being racists ourselves.
YNWA Luis Suarez!
PS – there were a lot of emotions writing this so I would like to apologize if there is a lack of structure to the essay or if it sounds garbled.