written by Jamie McLaughlin website at www.anfieldnews.com
Through gritted teeth, and with no admission to guilt Liverpool have now accepted the decision by the FA to ban Luis Suarez for 8 matches. Both Liverpool and Suarez issued statements of resignation to the fact that they have to accept the ban, although in their statements there is no admission of being guilty to the charge.
But deep down they know that it is pointless and a waste of time to challenge the FA in a case involving a Manchester United player whose manager is the “Godfather” of the FA and Suarez was found guilty before the trial on the grounds of one man’s word against another man’s word with no witnesses.
The alleged victim Evra was apparently a more credible witness with his testimony, regardless of his history of troublemaking and even once trying to get a grounds man into trouble at Chelsea.
The FA was obviously just wanting to make an example of someone after showing discontent at Blatter’s comments towards racism recently. Suarez has just been made a scapegoat in this whole political affair.
An 8 game ban seems terribly harsh for the crime when a player can end a player’s career with a reckless challenge on the field and may not even get a ban for his crime. Funnily enough an example that springs to mind involved another Manchester United player, Roy Keane whose career ending tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland resulted in Keane receiving a 3 match ban and a small fine of £5000, OK so he got another ban later when he admitted in his autobiography of deliberately trying to “hurt” Haaland, where he received a 5 match ban for his comments. So in total Keane’s ban resulted in the same as Suarez, but I know what I think was the more serious crime and yet the punishment seems lenient to say the least.
The ban is not the biggest factor in this case, although it will hurt Liverpool’s ambitions this season. The biggest factor is that Suarez has been labelled a “racist” and mud sticks and this will never leave him. Everywhere he plays in England he will be subject to abuse from the opposing supporters and as we saw recently at Fulham he will receive no protection from anybody and he will be under scrutiny as all eyes will be on a reaction from him as he will be expected to show no retaliation, like he showed at Fulham which resulted in another ban for the unfortunate striker.
I also fear Liverpool losing him altogether as I would consider leaving this country if I was him and go to a country that will appreciate his talent. I hope for Liverpool’s sake that he doesn’t feel like me, but life will be so much more difficult for him now in this country.
But one thing that Suarez can be sure of is that he will never walk alone as long as he remains at Liverpool.
An accusing finger would have to be pointed at Dalglish for allowing the Suarez incident to escalate to such a deplorable level… much like the Liverpool team he manages.
Well said, it baffles me how one man’s word is taken over another’s without anything to back it up, Evra admitted he verbally abused Suarez and that he was the one who started the row in the goalmouth and yet his word is considered more reliable. The F.A. report and Evra states that they do not believe Suarez is a Racist yet the media call him that and it will stick with him for the rest of his life, I have no doubt that there was verbal between them as there is between players in all matches and if one is to be punished then they both should be.
Luis Suarez will not leave Liverpool, he is so happy there, with lot of friends, don’t worry, take my word
I agree with you. It will be unbearable for him in England. :(
Lily
A non-Caucasian Liverpool fan from Malaysia.
I have no doubt now that Luis will be off in the summer and I wouldn’t begrudge him one bit if he was to join a top European team, Barcelona for me. The english FA and media have made him out to be a racist without any concrete evidence.
I don’t think a massive club like liverpool would put their entire reputation in jeopardy if they had any doubts what so ever.
Just leaves the FA exposed now they’ve set a precedent. What happens when the next black player accuses someone of the same thing. It’s almost like managers could strategically get other players banned. This will just open a can of worms.
If racism is to be stamped out, people also need to accept that racism isn’t just towards black people. Unfortunately, i couldn’t see a case being taken to the FA if a white player said a black player called him a ‘white c***’. Just my opinion.
Listen, I love Liverpool as much as the next fan and we all know Suarez is not a racist, however deep down I think we all know the club hasn’t handled this whole mess very well. Firstly Suarez, all said and done, needed to be smarter. Second, antagonizing the FA will get Liverpool nowhere. Thirdly, the Tshirts, while creating a wonderful siege mentality, has further isolated Liverpool from the footballing public. Perhaps we as fans dont care, maybe we love the “us against the world” philosophy. However, I can’t help but think that if there were no T-shirts, no huge statements, and a steady “No Comment” from Dalglish, this affair wouldnt have been blown all out of proportion. What a waste, when we could be discussing transfers instead…
Evra said to the ref on the field, you are only booking me because im black, why has the ref not been found guilty, according to Evra he is, manu and fergy have a lot to answer, manu players have brought shame on their club, rooney shagging grannys, giggs his sister in law plus a model, rooney kicking players gets two match ban evra the so called french man who likes telling lies, fergey and the horse scandal the list goes on and on, and we worry about Saurez nah, Saurez you never walk alone
Ronaldo suffered the worst abuse in the prem but look how he reacted to it that’s what Suarez will have to do. ( pains me to say that but it’s true) he used the abuse to spur him on hopefully Suarez will do the same because you are right he will suffer a lot of abuse now it’s all about how he handles it. He isn’t a racist he had no need to admit to saying what he did but he obviously did believe it was acceptable. So why the cunts at the fa couldn’t just tell him you made a mistake you can’t say words like that in England if you do it again now you know it’s unacceptable you will be banned
he is definetely off to spain in the summer and i reali want him to go cuz hes a wonderful player and i dont want him playing in EPL and getting abused in every match. How is gona FA ever gona be fair when there is someone like David Gill who is the CEO of Man u their board member!
From a brown fan from India(and im proud of my colour unlike Evra!)
Roy Keane did not end Haaland’s career. This is one of the biggest myths in football. Haaland played two games within seven days of the tackle. He played against Bulgaria four days after, and started against West Ham the following weekend. And the surgery that ended his career was on the other knee.
And the fine Keane received was £150,000 on top of the eight match ban.
I’m sure you won’t post this though, because it’s so much more convenient to ignore facts.
The sham moralism of the British media on this issue has been shameful – and of course you just have to join in. It got its pound of flesh yesterday – a token foreign player scapegoated to appease a collective skewed sense of self-righteousness in our reductive and binary cultural purview. But in reading the statements you can tell Liverpool and Suarez wanted to fight but felt cornered by the media and a growing number of anti-racist groups that have not been looking at the events evenly. I’m sad that Liverpool capitulated such pressure but glad they made a firm rebuttal in both statements released.
The FA and national media (now including even the Guardian) have been over-keen to paint a black and white image but are guilty of applying reductionalist thinking in forcing their will. It is not a triumph for anti-racism but a triumph for a sham moralist witch-hunt – and the descrimination and defamation of a foreign player. And all by an FA that espoused apartheid and ignored the vulgar English brand of racism for years. I think Suarez will leave England the first chance he gets – as you can hear the powerlessness in his statement and sense the singularity in the way he has been treated. Sadly, the capitulation that you have vehemently called for will solve nothing – the player will still be branded as a racist on the terraces – and neither statement will be received in good grace by the pharisees in the media. A hollow victory for the Fergie-tainted association and their toadies – who have now enabled players to be targeted and convicted on hearsay from here on.
The FA and the English media are guilty of the very thing the claim to rail against. Quite simply, it is not a righteous position to condone the skewing of evidence based upon character preferences, Convicting upon probabilities, treating witnesses unequally, condemning one player in an instance where both are alleged to trade insults, defaming one person’s character, setting up a template for hearsay convictions, and completely ignoring the cultural and linguistic elements of a case between two foreign players. Also, where you to do a modicum of research on Luis Suarez you would that his character history and social work in this area is impeccable.
Tricia is right about Roy Keane he got finned £150,000 and had a 5 match ban added to his 3 match he served after the tackle. Also as said above Halland career was finished due to an injury on his left knee, not his right ( which Keane tackled) and if u look at videos of that tackle you can see his left knee bandaged up. Finally Keane accepted his ban as he was injured at the time and would of missed them games anyway due to surgery and if he appealed his ban this could of backfired and meant he would of been banned when he returned to fitness