By the way just to clarify the above post for some , I am not racist , have worked in a few different countries have lived in a few different countries , have friends of many colours and creeds , religions etc ! Have suffered racism in some of these places ,Go alone to an arabic country as a blonde young man!!!! Name calling is trivial ! In Oman we had brits to work and fly the aircraft and indians to run the rest of the base , Britts and Indian`s alike called them Jingleys! That wasnt a racist term it was a generic term for the non technical staff! suarez affair nothing , if he said hey negro I`m gonna stab you!! then that in my eyes is more serious ! Jingleys called us pinkies!!! that aint racist either!
funny that, I always thought that Everton were the prime racists on Merseyside. Certainly in the 80's when I regularly watched Watford at Goodison & Anfield, there was always much more baying and monkey chants when Barnes got the ball at Goodison. Thoroughly unpleasant, overrated, bigotted bunches of fans both I'm afraid - and don't get me going on the "legendary" sportsmanship of the Kop. Sheer myth! Very like Upton Park being the "East London Academy of Football" - yeah with Billy Bonds, Razor Ruddock and Julian Dicks graduating with First Class Honours!!! Perhaps we should start a thread on Football's greatest Myths! To return to subject, I'm afraid Liverpool have allowed their hatred for and current jealousy of Man Utd. to get in the way of objective thinking.
I think you're onto a winner with the last two paragraphs Vic. Even if you accept that Liverpool genuinely believe Suarez's innocence, regardless of what you think about how the FA has gone about this, and even if for the sake of argument you accept that they're right to do so, Liverpool have handled this terribly. They should either have done everything in their power to take the sting out of the matter, or they should still be fighting it. The blame for their handling of it lies squarely, in my opinion, with Kenny Dalglish.
You are assuming that any witness statements or evidence can only verify or not, what Suarez said to Evra, but this is not the case here or in most legal proceedings. Witness statements and evidence can also determine a series of events, context and the veracity of other statements or evidence. There were witnesses, they may not have witnessed all of the words spoken between Evra and Suarez, but they witnessed the events that led up to and occurred after the particular moment and even after the match. Some of these events were also caught on video and these video clips were used as evidence - for instance they were used, along with the statements by Evra and Suarez, by the Spanish Language Expert Witnesses for them to understand the context and series of events. This case was not simply about one party's word against another - and this is made clear in the judgement. Whether this case is worse than what is said to have been sang to Billy Sharp is just a distraction - both are despicable. My view is simple, Suarez has been judged to have broken FA regulations and has been punished accordingly. That judgement was based on the evidence presented to an independent commission.
Guilty or not, Suarez's disgruntlement at the 'ref's' decision appears to be spreading to others: http://www.sportinglife.com/footbal...04/SOCCER_QPR_Snap.html&TEAMHD=soccer&BID=165 Mind you, what else could you expect from Joey Barton?
Joey Barton in a hypocritical shocker? Funny that he had a different view when he got Gervinho sent off when he was at Newcastle - "I've been hit harder by people at school but that doesn't make what he did right or wrong."
Give Barton some credit. It's occured to him that he could put his intricate knowledge of the legal system to use.
A direct result of Liverpool's handling of the Suarez case? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/16452241.stm
quite probably... and amazing to think that they think talking to Manchester United will now make things better after the shocking way they handled the situation.
I heard that something happened whilst I was listening to the radio. This is all very strange, I have not heard any racist comments on the terraces or stands for years....
Sad to see - your always going to get the few idiots at these games. Liverpool fans generally are good people and the club well run but they got a lot of negative press over the Suarez row. FA were never going to back down even if was a case of one man's word against another - hardly helped the allegations were from a Man U player! IT would be interesting to see what happens to Terry..a man already stripped of the England captain's role once.
Oh look another one jumping on the racism bandwagon ,the Oldham player last night! All this affair has been blown out of all proportion and the copycats and repercussions of this sorry affair have started already FFS keep politics out of sport where you can !
Then in the way the law has been implemented the law is an ass! It needs to made sensible! whilst your at it ,there are a lot of other laws in the UK that need revisiting too!
In fairness to Norway, the law doesn't apply on a football pitch. When was the last time a footballer got convicted of common assault, ABH or GBH for his actions on the field of play?
Oh I don't know, though! I was racially abused in the crowded main street of Elgin a couple of months ago, but the police officer I complained to did nothing. Now I wonder what action he would have taken if the complaint had been made to him by a high-profile-headline grabber-member of the public, such as, er........ Patrice Evra? The law applies equally to all of us, not just to those whom the powers-that-be find it politically expedient to make public.
Not true NNW, they're not upheld because no action is taken. If you attack a player on the pitch, like the guy in Holland, you end up in prison.
because theres one law for "famous"people and another for the rest of us! Are you asking for laws to be consistent BB? You would have to build many more prisons to house all of those that have verbally abused another!