Luis Suarez suspension & reaction

As you have all heard by now, the Football Association have decided to ban Luis Suarez for 8 matches and fine him £40k in relation to the incident with Patrice Evra during the most recent Man United match at Anfield. The decision was controversial, to put it lightly, and has received the most mixed of responses.

One of those responses came from our football club. Every word in the statement packed a punch… punches aimed directly at the Football Associations decision, and indeed, decision making process. Similar to the FA’s decision, this official statement from Liverpool Football Club received a wide assortment of responses.

Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl asked if the response was written by Dan Gilbert, referring to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ owners response to the departure of Lebron James. It, admittedly, did have a touch of bitterness to it, some real venom. However, at the end of the day, I don’t believe Liverpool Football Club could have penned a better response to the sanction. In the past, contentious decisions have been debated ad nauseam on the internet. This statement shared the sentiments of several Liverpool FC fans, and communicated them in a reasonable, but direct way.

I personally (@whatwouldkevdo, member of @ChicagoLFC), still do not know enough about the case to fully understand what happened. As it stands, I don’t believe anyone, FA committee included, knows enough about the incident to pass judgments on the case, let alone hand down an 8 match ban.

If it comes to be that Luis Suarez indeed used a racial slur in a derogatory way, then I will have a difficult time getting behind him when he pulls on that famous red shirt. Indeed, with the FA’s “Kick Racism out of Football,” push, I would expect, and want, the suspension to be much longer than 8 paltry matches. But with the ‘evidence’ currently available(Evra’s half hearted statement in which he indicates that he does not believe Suarez is a racist), and the obvious lack of precedent, an 8 match seems over the top. It seems like the FA are making a statement.

As for what Evra supposedly said (‘Don’t touch me, South American’) it seems to me that it warrants a similar punishment. As the statement from LFC indicated, Evra admitted to using a term referencing a player’s background/origin in a derogatory way. In Suarez’s case, there is the great debate over the context of the word and it’s meaning in Suarez’s culture. In Evra’s case it’s a matter of a largely inoffensive term being used in a derogatory manner. That is all assuming that Evra said, ‘South American,’ and not ‘Sudaca,’ which is widely accepted as a disparaging way of referring to South Americans.

If Evra receives a similar punishment, then I will accept that this is the punishment that the FA has established for comments made with racial connotations. Due to the lack of precedent, we have nothing to indicate that this is overly unfair. What we do have is a similar case in the same incident, that, in my eyes, deserves the same punishment. If the FA charge Evra, then we must accept Suarez’s punishment. But I do not believe that they will. Similarly, if the FA throw the book at John Terry, I will have no complaints with the Suarez ban. As it stands, Terry will, at the very worst, receive a small fine from the police, and the FA have yet to bring any charge to him. So once again, it seems unlikely.

I eagerly await the FA’s release of further information, as it will either undercut or justify the largely negative reaction from Liverpool fans and officials. However, it seems the damage may already be done, with “newspapers” like the Daily Mirror publishing this libelous headline.

What do you all think?