Now this is a tricky one to get your teeth into.. much more than who you'd be the best option starting down the right hand side of midfield for Liverpool and a problem that will hopefully not be too much of a problem in the near future.. when we sign some young tricky winger of Barca who solves our problems and also sorts that thorny racism issue problem out as well.
Racism and the associated issues make the problems of football in general pale into insignificance.
I do find it interesting though that the Suarez case seems to have crystalised opinion, based not particularly around any facts (of which at this time seem a little thin on the ground) but around the colour of your shirt, rather than the colour of your skin.
I'm a Liverpool fan.. this is probably apparent... and whilst say Patrice Evra might make me sick. This is to do entirely with the colour of his shirt which I can tell because I hold Wayne Rooney in similar levels of contempt.One thing that is worth pointing out at this stage is that when I say Man Utd players make me sick it is on one level - in the kind of football banter - (all your players are shit, were the best etc etc) nonsense that it seems football was designed to generate, and is part of the reason we all spend our time following it I suppose.
Now we are talking degrees of sick here.. or possibly textures. I don't particularly want to follow that train of thought.
When were talking about people that are actually racist.. Nick Griffin, East Europeans with their monkey chants, whoever really. That does actually make me sick - the kind with bits of carrott in it. When it's all a bit more real and about problems have existed for as long as there have been people, as opposed to as long as there has been an FA.
I don't particularly want to get into the specifics of the Evra / Suarez case (but I probably will).. largely because there don't appear to be any. Patrice Evra says Luis Suarez said something to him.. actually Suarez hasn't denied saying it - but rather that what he has said has been taken out of context. There's been a lot of reference to this word "Negrito" which is apparently commonly used in South America. If this is what all the issue surrounds then an 8 game ban seems insane and ironically an issue based around cultural misunderstanding.
If.. there's probably a lot of "if's" going on here.. this is what Suarez said and he could see it niggled Evra, which given that Evra says Suarez repeated it a few times seems possible, if players can see an opportunity to wind up their opponent then they will more than likely take it.
Patrice Evra then reports - "Luis Suarez said a bad word, it refers to the colour of my skin. I'm personally offended."
Luis Suarez then gets hauled before the FA says - "yes I said that, but where I come from that's not a bad word."
Luis Suarez wanders into this at just the wrong time.. possibly naively, when you've got the "Kick it Out" campaign and possibly more relevant Sepp Blatter's comments about racism on the pitch being sorted out with a hand-shake - and the FA not particularly getting on with FIFA at the moment and possibly wanting to take some kind of moral high ground.
They slap an 8 game ban on Suarez.. Liverpool will appeal this because it seems over the top.. especially when you consider going over the top in football means possibly breaking someones leg and getting a 3 game ban. Liverpool appeal, the FA have given themselves sufficient wiggle room. So on appeal Suarez gets maybe a 4 game ban and told not to say anything to anyone in future an keep up the "no biting" thing as well if you could.
This is what I think will happen.. as most parties involved will be able to deal with it.
Liverpool FC because a 4 game ban is better than 8.
The FA because they have shown that they are dealing with the racism issue.
Patrice Evra because Suarez gets a ban, which I suspect was he was after in the first place.
I might be wrong.. Suarez may have said something completely indefensible and he might deserve everything he gets. But I think the most telling point is in Patrice Evra's written statement it states : "I don't think that Luis Suarez is racist." The FA accepted that he wasn't racist in their opening remarks of this case.
We'll see how it all pans out.. I know what I want to happen, based largely on my own prejudices it must be said. It also must be said that if there was actual proof that Suarez had said or done something that actually was racist - than frankly he gets everything he deserves. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.
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