After Luis Suarez's apology today to 'Liverpool FC and all that it stands for', is that the end of the matter? Or indeed should that be the end of the matter.
It seems that this article in the New York Times (who are apparently shareholders in the Fenway Group, Liverpool's owners) about the incident may have forced Suarez to apologise due to bad publicity on the other side of the Atlantic, which is clearly a market that they will look to exploit sooner rather than later.
Hopefully now that the apology has been made that will be the end as far as the press are concerned, and everyone can just get on with playing football. That said, Suarez has had unequivocal support from the club, his manager and his team-mates. This makes me think that there has to be something untoward along the line somewhere. Even if both players behaviour yesterday was not becoming of their clubs, it seems to me that the behaviour of both men suggests that Suarez has been hard done by. Also, not in any court in the land could you get a man convicted of a crime on the hearsay evidence of one man alone, yet the Football Association saw fit to do so on this occasion.
I know that if somebody had been racist towards me, I would not want to shake their hand. Also on the flip-side, if somebody had accused me of behaving in a racist fashion, and I knew full well that I hadn't, (or had not intended to) I would not want to shake their hand either. What I do also find interesting is that the term 'racism' has been used from the start. By definition of the term, there must have been some vitriolic and nasty abuse that Suarez was superior to Evra on the ground of race and colour. Bearing in mind that Suarez's team-mates who are from all corners of the world have supported him from the beginning, is it likely that Suarez believes that Uruguayan of fairer skinned people are superior? Or for that matter, do people really think the Suarez thinks that French people or darker skinned people are inferior? I think not.
As there was not, and still is not, any conclusive evidence to really prove this case one way or the other, nobody will ever know what really happened on that day. My summation comes from purely the body language of both men, the visual evidence from various sports channels as well as what was reportedly given as evidence by Evra and Suarez in the case. I think football as a whole, and fans of all clubs, will be glad to see the back of this issue as well as the other high profile racism case. Unfortunately that one is dragging on until July.
Maybe we can start next season with a clean slate...
 | |
| Follow me on Twitter! |
No comments:
Post a Comment