Rory Smith of The Times has written a piece in response to the Luis Suarez story for The Anfield Wrap:
Author’s note: This is not about Luis Suarez, or Liverpool, or the Football Association, or the rights and wrongs of the case which led to the striker being suspended for eight games and fined £40,000. Enough has been written on that subject by my peers and superiors in what might be termed the football commentariat; I have little of worth to add, on that subject, and, even as a Spanish speaker and a former inhabitant of South America, have no more qualification than most to do so.
What has struck me as remarkable, in the days since the verdict was announced, was how many people “know” what Suarez said, and even why he said it. This is quite a feat, when the evidence is bafflingly yet to be released. The debate remains one of impassioned ignorance. I do not wish to become embroiled in an uninformed discussion of fairness and unfairness, of claim and counter-claim. This is not about Suarez, or Liverpool, or the FA. It is about what it is to be English, and what the last few days have shown us about our nation.
I should, of course, declare a bias; not the one that has so polarised assessment of the case and of the judgment, between those who mindlessly admit no wrongdoing on the part of a hero and those who have sought to see a man labelled a racist simply so a rival football team might be deprived of their best player, but that of the self-loathing Englishman, and that of the Hispanophile, and that of the natural, inherent contrarian. All other considerations, I hope, have been removed.
Please have a read of the full article at The Anfield Wrap: “Hypocrisy: the English disease“.
December 23, 2011 at 7:53 am
Mr Evra was called a bad word and ran to the authorities demanding action. Mr Evra is, like most professional footballers, an extremely sensitive man, whose feelings are easily hurt. Mr Evra should realise that this terrible situation could happen again. However, if Mr Evra played all his football in Africa it would be most unlikely to happen again. The reason is that nearly all the players and supporters would be black and therefore very unlikely to abuse him racially. This appalling trauma, for which his gigantic salary cannot possibly compensate him, would never have to be endured again. Why doesn’t Mr Evra take this option?
December 24, 2011 at 11:08 am
Rory Smith is the best young sports journalist in England. His experience of living abroad no doubt helps. Shame he is behind a paywall now but it takes away the only reason to read the paper that employs Ian Herbert and James Lawton which is good.
December 24, 2011 at 11:53 pm
Personally I don’t believe this argument is any longer about the ban or the fine imposed upon the player and the club.
This is now about about a man (Luis Suarez) being stigmatised as a ‘racist’, or at the very least, being capable of using ‘racist language’. An accusation or stigma any self respecting person would not want to be associated with, footballer or otherwise.
Luis Suarez knows the context in which he said what he said, and siding with John Barnes recent assertions that ‘cultural’ differences’ do matter’, I believe this is the fundamental basis upon which both Luis Suarez and the club are standing up and contesting the FA findings.
On the basis of the testimonilas provided by the player and the club to the FA enquiry, I ask myself if those same submissions would have been enough for the CPS to have brought a criminal prosecution against Luis Suarez? I doubt it very much!
With the FA being a complete and utter shambles of an organisation, I feel the club should await the written confirmations on the basis of the findings, and if as suspected, we find ourselves no further down the road to gaining an acceptable explanation as to how they reached their verdict. Then the club and the player should contest the matter on a point of ‘Law’, via the UK civil and/or European courts.
With Suarez’s name cleared in the civil/European courts, the FA would then be left with no alternative but to rescind their original findings. In short, a reversal of how the FA are handling the John Terry affair. While the 8 game ban could not be reversed once served, the fine (irrelevant) and more importantly the player’s and the clubs integrity could be returned to normal.