When will he learn?

The leader of some 'Black Union' in Liverpool referred to it on her blog, Jon Murphy, the chief constable of Merseyside, was on the local radio station and he said that he contacted Evra immediately after the game and also afterwards to see if he wanted to press charges, Evra refused both times apparently!

The woman who's blog it was is Gloria Hyatt, she was saying that Liverpool should apologise to Evra and then went on to ask the club to fund a conference for her organisation!!!

 

This is factually incorrect!

The FA employed language experts in an attempt to understand whether or not the words used could be deemed as racially abusive. The experts were undecided on this, in fact they actually determined that Evra's version of events made no sense linguistically if his account was to be believed!

Anyway, the examples I used of the miscarriages of justice were simply to highlight your (imo) absurd notion that there is no possible way that Suarez was innocent, you and I both know that this is a possibility, a meaningless one now in reality, but still a possibility! Much like the fact that Joan of Arc wasn't an actual witch, Colin Stagg was innocent and Rio Ferdinand was not actually guilty of missing his test on purpose, there is always the possibility that people get things wrong!

We both know this, only one of us can admit it though! The other one sits there overusing the words 'moronic', 'vile' and 'racist' and '****head', abusies every one and every thing that disagrees with him and then expects us to take his rants and raves seriously as if he is some level-headed man who knows what he is talking about!

 

The FA is a regulatory body. They regulate football, and their decisions are made on that basis. If they had to prove things beyond all reasonable doubt then issues like racism would probably be much more prevalent - how easy would it be just to sidle up to someone, mutter something racist that couldn't clearly be picked up on video and just say it's the other player's word against theirs? Or use a racist term, knowing it's racist, but claim they were "misunderstood"? Just the same as the Rio incident - the FA came down hard to make sure no one else would ever risk missing a drug's test.

As for the 99.5% conviction rate, that includes the 99% of incidents for which there is absolutely convincing video footage. For example, the Barton incidents, the Rooney swearing thing last year, Cantona's kick, Rio's drugs, Diouf's spitting etc. When you consider that, it's pretty obvious why they have a 99.5% conviction rate - should they have let some of those players off purely to make the conviction rate look better?!

The point is that the CPS was willing to take the case to within a whisker of going to court despite having absolutely no evidence. And cases have been brought, and successfully convicted, by the CPS with a similar weight of evidence. If the Suarez case went to court then the CPS could easily stand up and say "We have an admission from the accused that he used a racially offensive term, testimony from his team mate and DoF that he made it in a racially offensive manner ('because you are black') and video evidence that shows him engaged in a confrontation with the accused". Pretty much the same as the ex City player who was convicted on the basis that "we have no evidence your honour, no video footage, no audio footage, in fact we don't even have any photographic evidence, but the woman says she was really pissed and didn't want to have sex with him".

Surely you'd think there'd be something, but as all the other incidents have shown there almost never is. As for "Sky's technology to zoom in and isolate sounds", don't make me laugh. This isn't the X-Files - they can't just listen to the tape and isolate some individual sound, that would be like taking a picture of a person and saying "right, let's clearly isolate their kidneys on this picture".

Maybe, but having the system the other way round will just open the floodgates. If someone can admit using a term that can be used in a racist context and gets away with it, you are effectively sending a signal that racist terms can be used on the football pitch as long as you make it a bit unclear whether or not you are actually being racist.

It is possible. In the same way that it's possible that Harold Shipman didn't actually murder anyone. After all, there was no video or photographic evidence, no witnesses, and no conclusive evidence in that case either.

Ultimately, there is always doubt, but in my opinion based on the evidence and the testimony, Suarez used the term "negro" as part of an effort to wind up Evra, recognising that it was causing him offence and annoyance. That doesn't, in my view, make him a racist, and in my opinion it doesn't constitute "racial abuse", but it is not something that should be acceptable, on a football pitch or anywhere else.

 

You don't really understand this topic do you?

Oh well, maybe you can write an article about the only thing that United won this year being the FA disciplinary hearing against Suarez! It might give you a bit more understanding of both the subject and also go some way to explaining why United fans are so angry over this, why the anger?

 

I think that if the FA are going to preside over matters like this, then there should be a much more stringent burden of proof. I think I read that if this was a criminal case then the heaviest punishment is something like a £2500 fine! Yet the FA have a more relaxed method of obtaining a guilty verdict but imposed a much heavier sentence. That doesn't make sense to me and imo needs to be changed, I understand the need to make a statement here, but they had a similar situation with Emre, and didn't take it. Instead they found that case unfounded because the statements were inconsistent, sound faimiliar?

That's bollocks, there were 473 cases in one year up to December 2011, 2 of them returned verdicts of 'not-guilty'! This is not 473 charges that were uncontested, theses were all contested charges, i.e. the accused were challenging the decision which makes me think that they were not all as cut and dried as you suggest, but were actually I imagined thought worthy of being contested by the individuals. The system is clearly flawed, as one solicitor put it, "A body with that sort of conviction rate needs to look at its procedures, It is as if you are guilty until proven innocent and that is not in the interests of justice." He went on and described the FA as "police, judge and jury all rolled into one". Which is true if you think about it!

I think from reading your example that 'new' evidence came to light after the CPS sent it to court, that's the way I read it anyway. I doubt this case would have got to court, I think you probably do too! Remember the Oldham lad who was 'racially abused' and started crying at Anfield? Every man and his dog was on here calling Liverpool fans racists etc etc...the CPS did not press charges as there was insufficient evidence, but clearly the player made a statement giving his version of events which must have included 'proof' of him being racially abused, so why was it dropped? Even Ollie Holt from the Mirror heard the abuse that night, he tweeted about it within minutes...from his hotel in Dubai!

Funnily enough, in all those incidents where there is no evidence, the accusations were never founded. Is that a coincidence? Every other known accusation of racial abuse on the pitch has never been proven because of no evidence to back up the claim...until Suarez, when there was no evidence but he was found guilty, how odd! As for isolating sounds, my pc can do it, so its not that technologically difficult is it?

I am glad you said it is possible that he may be innocent, I think that he may be guilty as well as understanding that he may be innocent. So, if you and I are not certain surely that tells us that the system is flawed. How can you decide upon something so serious without having to be as confident as possible about your decision being correct?

Do you think it is okay for Evra to wind Suarez up initially by trying to insult his family and not being subject to any action from the FA? Does this suggest to you that the FA have a sliding scale that determines levels of abuse that are/are not acceptable? Referring and abusing skin colour is wrong, referring and abusing your family is okay, I wonder where hair colour, sexuality and physical features come in this scale, homophobic abuse = wrong, gingerism = okay!

 

scousers, i got a question.. say if im from another country and that "N" word is legal in that country and im allowed to say it there, does that mean i can come to England and start saying that word? does that make it ok? because who care's what the rules are in england im just going to follow the rules are in my country( thats the case in the ****'s point of view)...... Suarez the **** did admit he used that "N" word but he thought it was ok to say it because he can say it in Uruguay. pathetic.. i bet even if God comes down and says Suarez was racist you ****s still won't believe it.

 

so your point of view " that man is insulting me or my family waaaaa , oh yeah il get him back by calling him by a racist word, that makes things even"

 

It's not just commonplace to use the word negro in an non-offensive manner in Uruguay though is it? Suarez used it in Holland, Messi uses it in Spain, Hernandez uses it in Mexico, Heinze uses it in Spain, etc etc

This is just what we have heard about in the last few months, i imagine it is more commonplace than we realise. So it is not simply a case of Suarez using it hear, he uses it everywhere, as does his Uruguayan team-mates as do Argentinians blah blah blah!

I think the problem here is our lack of understanding of the terminology and its usage in other countries, a perfect example is Evra and Fergie's role in this incident...Evra thought that Suarez was speaking to him using a French word apparently (it doesn't make sense but that's what he said) and Fergie then relayed this to the authorities, by using the French translation of the Spanish word Negro, which translates in some instances to n*****r! Why Evra decided to do this I have no idea, but as you can see there is confusion surrounding the word and how it is interpreted by different people!

As for your question, I would imagine that you would use the word until you were told that it was unacceptable, or until someone took offence to it! Until then, why would you not use it if you did not know there was a problem and it was a usual turn of phrase used to refer to both black and white people in your culture?

 

Where have I stated that this was my point of view? Can you not read?

The part you have emboldened contains 2 questions and then a sentence that contains another question along with references to a possible sliding scale of levels of abuse! It does not contain anything that you could realistically refer to as 'my point of view', in fact it contains no opinion at all.

Having said that, I do think the fact that one form of abuse is seen as more 'serious' than another is problematic in today's society.

As an example, there were two women arguing in a bus stop in London the other day, the black woman was giving the white woman all sorts of abuse, insulting her dad, her husband, her kids...she called her all the c**** and b******* under the sun, had a real rant at her for about 5 minutes. The white woman said in reply, **** off you black ****, once. The white woman was later arrested by police cos the black woman had filed a complaint of being racially abused! Is that right?

 

It doesn't matter if it's right the fact is it is deemed to have broken the law in this country. Don't like the law then pressure your MP to change it.

Closed. Seems some Liverpool fans are as conciliatory as Suarez.