“If cups were awarded for cock-ups then you would not be able to move in City’s boardroom” — Francis Lee

It was appropriate that Liverpool played Manchester City last night, hours after they attempted to draw a line under the Luis Suárez-Patrice Evra incident. The Anfield club may be struggling to keep pace on the pitch with the arrivistes, but the past few weeks have allowed them to usurp the title of cock-up kings.

Their churlish statement underlined this and brings an ugly episode to a gruesome end. Liverpool mishandled the entire case badly, from the referee’s room at Anfield in October to last night’s undignified press release.

The essence of the statement is simple: we’re right but we’ll back off for the greater good. The club’s partisan supporters, who have launched themselves into the defence of the indefensible with characteristic passion, will cheer its belligerence. They will point to the FA’s 115-page verdict — which has something for every conspiracy theorist, nuevo Hispanic linguist and closet racist — to show the inefficiency and muddleheadedness of the ruling body.

They have a point.

The report could have been condensed to its salient facts: Suárez was undone by the evidence of Damien Comolli, the Liverpool director of football, who went to the referee’s room at Anfield after the incident and told the officials that the word “negro” had been used by Suárez in his spat with Evra.

It was a reference to colour — in any language, despite Suárez’s statement — and part of a dialogue that was designed to unsettle and undermine the Manchester United defender. After that, all of Evra and United’s evidence could have been discarded. The only question was how much racism is involved.

The three-man commission was happy to accept Suárez is not a racist, as was Evra. But the charge was proved and the mention of Evra’s colour admitted. All the sound and the fury that followed served only to diminish the status of a great club.

This was a farce from Liverpool’s perspective. The club’s lawyers produced a shambolic display and the lack of direction from Anfield and Boston throws into question whether anyone was paying attention to the realities of the situation.

The only senior figure from Liverpool to comment publicly has been Kenny Dalglish. Comolli’s voice was not heard until his damning evidence in front of the commission. Ian Ayre, the managing director, remained silent, as did the owners.

Yet last night’s statement had a surreal reference to racism in American sports. Is this John Henry, the face of Fenway Sports Group, signalling his support of the club’s stance? If it is, the intervention does not reflect well on him.

For a start, it came too late. Henry is keen to exploit the global markets and this mucky episode will not create new fans. The team have a leader and Dalglish can be trusted to develop the side and reinstall a winning attitude. But this mounting crisis needed direction from the boardroom. Only the most deluded would argue that this was anything less than a public relations disaster.

If the issues were not so big, there would be fine comedy in Liverpool’s approach: from the Ali G-style suggestion that Evra had told Andre Marriner “you’re only booking me because I’m black”, to the T-shirts of support worn before the Wigan Athletic game. But it is not funny that a club who needed to regain some dignity after the chaos of the Gillett and Hicks years should demean themselves in a battle that was questionable and unwinnable.

Liverpool can lambast the FA, which handled the situation badly. The FA can take solace that it has come out of this sordid drama with more credibility than Anfield. The cup for cock-ups has a new home.