Suarez admits calling Evra "negro" and the FA rules state that the language is prohibited and makes no concession for any intent so in that regard it's open and shut. The balance of probability comes into it later in terms of faults in Suarez's evidence which has been contradicted by video evidence, referee's evidence, Kuyt's evidence and even himself. How can you defend him?
That's comical. So you actually expect us to just go along with the f.a say? They don't exactly have much credibility and the certainly don't have a reputation for being fair or balanced. They are using one player's word's to convict another which is laughable considering Evra was involved in a racism case in the past where the f.a basically accused united of making up racism claim's against a Chelsea groundsman.
I stopped commenting on this matter a long time ago. The evidence has been released, nothing has been proved and the same arguments are still occurring. I am quite happy for us to just get on with the ****ing ban and go back to watching football.
If it's true he is a disgrace to the club, this with swearing at Fulham fans is almost unforgiveable and if he wasn't such a great player i would say sell him and so would many others
Does Evra not contradict himself just as much? He tells French TV he was called something 10 times, then he tells Ferguson and the referee he was abused 5 times. Plus look at all the Man Utd player statements, they're all virtually identical "I don't remember exactly what he said but...". Nothing suspicious going on there then, no? And on the negro part, its simply English arrogance to suggest that anyone making a reference to skin colour is racist and should be given a hefty ban. The FA should've taken into account the conversation was in Spanish between an Uruguayan and a Frenchman. If Suarez believed anything he said to be racist then he wouldn't have admitted saying "negro" once, but to his credit he did because he knew he didn't say it in an attempt to be racist.
I'm not saying you should have believed Evra or the FA but perhaps you should have waited for the evidence before shouting your collective mouth off, attacking Evra and the FA whilst defending Suarez. Now your lot look stupid as he is guilty and given the evidence there's not a single reasonable person that disputes it. How many times, does this have to be explained? They've not used Evra's word against Suarez to "convict" him, they also used his own unreliabillity when giving evidence at every stage, Suarez's admission of using the word that broke the rules, video evidence, player evidence, referee's evidence and two language experts.
Have scanned the report but I missed any bits about suarez being contradicted by kuyt so any chance of direct quote or paragraph number.
Ingore the knobheads, the only people that would say those sort of things would only use ****e like anfailed etc.
Nope. Those comments were made in the heat of the moment soon after the match. Since then the statements he gave to the FA have been consistent and backed up by video and player/referee evidence. Suarez's is almost the exact opposite. They did take into account, hence the Spanish language expert, who blew Suarez's claim that it was affectionate out of the water.
Yid Vicious; you are guilty of what you accuse: 1) re-read my post; I categorically state that if the panel were judging purely on objective grounds, Suarez is guilty and deserves a 4 match ban: no argument from me there or rose tinted glasses. I also believe as 2 posts on by Liverpool fans who have a slightly different opinion than me that you are guilty of lazy generalisations regarding LFC supporters & their unequivocal support. 2) my problem with the FA is simple: cowardice. They don't have enough evidence to categorically call Suarez a racist because they would lose in a court. So to find him guilty at all they go down the objective route: as I've said no problem with that. But to then switch to intent based suppositions & it is a supposition as they have no evidence other than the word of the accuser of the number of times the word was used (& they dont believe him!) to then go beyond the rule they've used to extend a punishment is a disgrace: go back & read the rule: nowhere does it say you extend the ban depending on the number of times a word of abuse is used. Irrelevant anyway. They have shown NO evidence in this report to prove the number of times it was used or the intent behind it which is why I will state again: The evidence they have produced is only enough to give a four match ban on objective grounds to the letter of their law: anything more is politics not justice. As for LFC supporters "picking through the document" this is EXACTLY what the panel did with the evidence to come to their conclusions; it's what the court of arbitration will do again So I believe LFC supporters have just as much right to do exactly the same. And please: read this post carefully before making your tribal based assumptions in your response to prevent you looking like the idiot you did on your last try.
Like I said before, if the FA actually used the "beyond reasonable doubt" argument then no one would ever get a ban - clubs would just recruit armies of high priced lawyers who could put reasonable doubt into anyone's mind about pretty much anything! And balance of probability is what is used in civil courts, which actually covers most of the justice system, so cases like slander, libel, divorce, employment discrimination and others are all judged on the same basis as the Suarez case was. I'm sure that more than one multi million pound divorce case has been decided based on who the judge thought was the most credible witness. To be fair, there is a difference between contradicting yourself in an interview and contradicting your own testimony during the middle of the hearing! And the fact all the Utd player's statements are virtually identical could be suspicious, or it could just be that they are telling the truth! The FA aren't saying Suarez is racist - the report makes that very clear. But the FA rules say that anyone who makes a reference to skin colour in a derogatory or aggressive manner is in violation of rule 3(2), regardless of their intention. Because if this case has shown anything it's shown that even if you don't mean to be racist, using a word like negro is only going to generate controversy and bring the game into disrepute.
Balance of probability is the standard proof that is required in all civil cases. So it would be exactly the same in any court. Also it was not the FA doing this hearing, it was an independent panel. Both Evra and Comolli confirmed that saying "10 times" is an expression in France meaning just a lot of times, he was not being literal. I think it is more helpful looking at the Liverpool statements; Kuyt, Dalglish and Comolli initial statements all disagree with what Suarez claims, they all say the Suarez said "because you are black". The hearing heard from South American language experts who said that negro means black both as a noun and an adjective in Uruguay and it can be used both as a friendly term and also as a derogative offensive term depending on the context and seeing as it was said in a very aggressive and confrontational way it is not hard to extrapolate how it was intended. Suarez just kept changing his statements and they were too inconsistent and were not consistent with the video evidence and other people's statements.
****in' lovin this today, don't you lot know how drunk I was last night? I lost a lot of brain cells last night, from what I can remember Evra is going to the court of human rights because Fergie called him a fish and Suarez stole his car. I'm a little hazy on the whole thing but it seems quite serious.
Anyway from looking at the "evidence" that the fa took over a week to make up it's not looking like a good idea to appeal. Buy a striker in Jan and Suarez the legend will be like a new player when he come's back.
lol Luv On a serious note its become very hard to defend Suarez. He hasn't actually denied making the remarks and language experts have been used to determine the context and understanding of the word 'negrito'. Even if we're not 100% with the way it has been judged, it is a precedent in itself, it does appear he used the words in a negative context. I'm starting to feel we should very quickly get Suarez to offer a statement of apology and one from us stating we were only protecting his interests untill the evidence became clear...we do not defend racism, he is not a racist but has done wrong here and will serve his time... etc. Our reputation is getting absolutely hammered as a result of this, we need to just swallow it and get on with it asap imo.
Paragraph 297: "According to Mr Kuyt, Mr Suarez said to him that he had touched Mr Evra on the head and he (Mr Evra) said something along the lines of "get away from me South American", to which Mr Suarez replied "because you're black can't...why can't I touch you then". The Dutch words which Mr Kuyt recalled Mr Suarez using were "omdat je zwart bent mag...waarom mag ik je daarom niet aanraken". Mr Kuyt explained to us that the initial phrase in this passage means "because you are black", i.e. omdat (because) je (you) zwart (black) bent (are)." So according to Kuyt, Suarez admitted saying "because you are black" to Evra, despite denying saying that to the DC. Suarez claimed that was a misunderstanding in translation, but Commoli gave evidence that Suarez said the same thing to him (para 293), and Dalglish told the ref Suarez had said "you are black" to Evra (para 289), which obviously makes Suarez look very unreliable as a witness.
