Later? We knew what Suarez was from his time at Ajax. That wasn't the point. He was bang-to-rights the day the FA commission opened - they said the evidence was 'subjective', i.e. did Evra feel he was abused, not whether Suarez intended it. As he admitted to saying the word (once) the outcome was that he should, on precedence, have been banned for four games after apologising (which people seem to forget that he did). That the ante was upped to eight games because Evra, who repeatedly changed his story about what he was called, how many times he was called it, and why he couldn't even utter the word he was called (despite being filmed on YouTube screaming it several times earlier in his career) was the reason for the umbrage and outrage at the sanction.
And recently, in one of the broadsheets, I saw a review by a one-eyed, biased journalist claiming the normal trope that all Liverpool supporters suddenly became experts in Latin-American Spanish, the nuances of criminal v civil law, etc... and how dare we try to say he didn't mean to offend when it was in the middle of an argument. Well, in that context, the only instance of any racial abuse recorded in that goalmouth was Evra starting an exchange by telling Suarez, in Spanish, to go and **** his sister's shell. Yet this was preposterously dismissed by the commission as an 'Exclamation' . This, of course, being the natural thing a Frenchman would exclaim in such a situation, not 'Zut alors!', or' Merde!', or 'Mon Dieu!" Yeah, no way could Suarez have been sincere in his explanation because they were arguing (or Evra was, anyway), whilst Evra was believed that his aggression was just an exclamation, despite that, and not Suarez saying that word 'ten times', being the only thing recorded by the several cameras and microphones around that goalbox.
The FA wanted a head-on-a-stick as they couldn't get Terry until his trial was over. Had there been any objective evidence that Suarez did what Evra said he did, he should have been in a criminal court, not an FA tribunal, but the fact that he wasn't tells you everything about the value of the evidence. Until somebody produces any more evidence, I'll never believe that Suarez did anything more than he readily admitted to, and for that he should have been rightly punished and banned, because ignorance is no defence. But we knew what he was at the time, and his subsequent behaviours haven't shocked me one jot: the man is a vile, win-at-all-costs bilge rat . Just like Evra, who had been sent out on a mission to nobble Suarez by that other win-at-all-costs bilge rat, Ferguson, and had been losing in that endeavour all game long, and was trying his best to provoke Suarez into a violent response
. But it was a political show 'trial', with the outcome decided before the hearing was even started. The T-shirts were just ****ing embarrassing, especially after FSG shouted the odds about going to the CIS, then shat themselves when certain media outlets said they'd attack their whole brand if they did. And Evra is now the poster boy of victimhood and model, professional behaviour. Pass the sickbag.
