Whilst a reference to the High Court is now purely academic it would have had to be based upon an abuse of power resulting in financial loss.
Not sure what law you think would cover that. As part of playing in the UK football league system clubs submit to the absolute authority of the FA and CAS, much like UK citizens submit to the absolute authority of the court system. So you'd effectively be asking the court to undermine its own authority by ruling the FA could abuse the power LFC agreed to give it as part of playing in the league.
Besides which, if the High Court was willing to set this precedent, it would still open the floodgates. Utd could claim abuse of power when the FA suspended Rooney for swearing on the basis no one else got punished etc etc. It would create a big legal mess and whole load of work for the courts, so I doubt they would even touch the case.
The linguistic difficulties I referred to were the interpretation of the words used by Suarez that gave rise to Kuyt, Commoli and Dalgliesh's statements.
I could understand that if it was just one of them. But for all three of them to give witness statements that he said pretty much exactly the same thing ("because you are black"), for conversations had in both Spanish and Dutch, implies there was more than just a linguistic issue.
Let's face it Evra specifically claimed in his complaint to the referee that he had been called one thing but then changed the charge to say that he had been called something-else. Then, in his written testimony, he admits to not only insulting Suarez at the start of the incident but also racially abuses him! The charge should never have been accepted by the FA in the first place. But to then condone Evra's part in the affair without comment or sanction is proposterous.
Evra's initial complaint was based on his belief that the word "negro" translated to "negre" in French, which means "******" in English. As soon as the error of his translation was pointed out he accepted this and, to his credit, testified to the FA that he thus didn't believe Suarez was racist. He also did not admit racially abusing Suarez - he claims he said "why did you kick me?" rather than "don't touch me you South American".
To be honest, I believe that he did say "don't touch me you South American", as that just seems more plausible in light of the whole conversation. But then with the contradictions over what Suarez said ("don't touch me you negro" vs "why negro") and the fact Suarez initially stated he was trying to calm Evra down before later admitting he was winding him up counted against Suarez a lot in this area.
I reckon if Suarez had stuck to the original story, that he told Kuyt, Commoli and Dalglish - that Evra called him South American and he responded with "because you are black?" the DC would either have punished both players or let them both off with a warning. But with Suarez changing his story on fairly crucial points it counted strongly against him and shifted the balance of probability in the eyes of the DC. At that point, they realised it would create more problems with media and public perception to acquit him that to punish him. Maybe not the best way to judge a hearing like this, but then since when has football justice ever been based on absolute fairness? Suarez is hardly the first player to be convicted after media pressure and in an effort for the FA to look tough...
