THIS week Neil is joined by Rob, Mike, Kristian, Jim, Andy and very special guests Daniel Hunt and Earl Jenkins.
Usual script with the lads as they dissect the Spurs and United games before discussing the fallout from the events at Old Trafford at the weekend.
#TAW29
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Direct link to Episode Twenty-Nine podcast download
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Hi Guys, I have tried a number of times to download the podcast but explorer just spends ages trying to load the url and nothing happens, any ideas?
Hi Thom – what happens if you right-click on the link and “save as”?
Right click/Save As works fine :)
Guys, anywhere I can stream the podcast while I’m away from iTunes?
You talk a lot about the media, but you also have a responsibility.
The promotion of misinformation is one factor why that child spoken about in the podcast feels uneasy at matches. Because certain fans are following the lead of the likes of the anfield wrap and believing things that aren’t true.
Things like Evra’s evidence not adding up or that Evra or the FA labelled Suarez a racist, when in fact the report concludes by saying:
“The FA made clear that it did not contend that Mr Suarez acted as he did because he is a racist. Mr Evra said in his evidence that he did not think Mr Suarez is a racist.”
The media affect the tone of issues and so do you.
Evra’s evidence did not add up. Justify to me why he went to the referee claiming that Suarez had called him ‘n***er’ when the word used was ‘negro’. Evra was fully aware what ‘negro’ meant as he demonstrated by shouting on the pitch “he called me f***ing black.”
His command of Spanish was good enough for him to make an offensive reference to the genitalia of the sister of Suarez. The fact that Suarez does not have a sister is of course irrelevant. Adding up? Apparently 5times in English is equivalent 10 times in French. Well it is according to Evra. If you read the commission’s findings as you claim to have done then you would see that the panel chose to overlook the obvious inconsistencies in Evra’s so called evidence but emphasised those in the case of Suarez. That’s called bias.
FYI: Suarez has two sisters.
To quote Ian Herbert, a journalist the Anfield Wrap respects:
“It is a tale of two testimonies — one of them almost entirely consistent, one of them utterly chaotic. Liverpool’s evidence was worse — incomparably worse — and the club appear to have been blinded by pure contempt that a United player should lay this claim at their door.
When the discrepancies between Suarez and his colleagues’ witness statements became apparent, Liverpool clearly realised they had a problem and stories started changing.
The commission’s commendably exhaustive work included the use of Manchester University linguistics experts to show that colloquial ‘negro’ is equally likely to be a malign term. There was no endearment about the way Suarez used negro, and no evidence that Evra had said “South American” in the first place.
The commission tried six times to pin Suarez down on another piece of his evidence, relating to why he touched Evra’s head, before he was forced to admit that an initial statement suggesting this had been a conciliatory gesture had been false
The Uruguayan’s reliability as a witness collapsed and, in a case which pitted Evra’s word against his, the remainder of the Frenchman’s accusations were found to be valid. Evra’s reputation was actually enhanced.”
(http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/premier-league/liverpool-left-tainted-by-suarez-affair-2977272.html)
“Suarez shames the proud name of his club, destroying any attempt to instil the virtues of the past. In an infantile refusal to do so, he denied his club any right to indignation about what has occurred in the past four months.”
(http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/suarez-destroys-clubs-attempts-to-restore-name-6788078.html)
That itself is misinformation, especially considering you do not answer the other poster’s allegations. TAW have been entirely fair in their presentation of the case. It is really refreshing that someone is intelligently analyzing the case from a different perspective (The Tomkin Times, has also done excellently here).
I’m sorry but if you find nothing inconsistent within Evra’s testimony, or faulty within their decision then you are not appreciating every aspect of the situation. Evra’s changing of the word used, his awful recollection of the words said, his changing the number of times the word was said, the fact that he dove over the supposed kick, the panel using Commolli’s and Kuyt’s statements as examples of inconsistencies and using it to convict him despite the fact that they accepted Suarez’s version in that particular instance, them magically coming up with the 7th use of the word negro (not Evra, not Suarez, not the ref, no one mentions this, the panel infesr it usage), and finally the FA’s absurd explanation of why Suarez would make such an outburst.
To say Suarez is a disgrace is hyperbolic, doubly so if you are using the handshake as your basis. It is one man not liking another, there is no need to shake hands, it had absolutely nothing to do with race. I could care less if he is the consumate professional, it does not matter.
Just within the excerpts of the links you’ve given I can spot misinformation, “equally likely to be malicious” this is a poor viewing of the linguistic expert’s analysis. It is not equally likely, it is merely possible. It was either completely malicious or completely non-offensive, depending on who’s version you accept. Seeing as how both testimonies are inconsistent, I am not willing to condemn either man. Suarez being of Liverpool is given my benefit of the doubt, it helps a great deal that everything regarding Suarez’s past and present life suggests he is not a racist.
Charlie, the reason evra gave for initially saying “N*ggers” was that he speaks six languages. He speaks Wolof, (sic) French, italian, english, spanish and portuguese and Negro means a lot of context dependent things in each of them. He said that he was confusing spanish with italian, and once this was pointed out to him, he withdrew that part of the allegation.
Also I wouldn’t make so much of the phrase that evra admitted saying. Suarez would only have understood that phrase to mean “F*cking hell”. At no point would he have thought he was referring to a sister. and suarez would have heard that phrase several times a day in uruguay. He also has six brothers and no sister.
Spanish is a great language for flowery swearing, There is one phrase that translates as shitting on the virgin mary. It just means that you are pissed off, rather than actually talking about taking a dump on a religious icon.
It would be like an irish person using the word “C*nt”. In america it is the worst sort of insult, meaning that a woman is nothing but her genitals. In ireland it is a word I’ve heard an old man use to describe toilet paper. It causes a lot of shock among visitors.
Tony – may have misunderstood your question here but i don’t use iTunes to listen to the podcast. I right click on the link, save file as, go to my Downloads folder and play it in any media i choose.
The media is the biggest and worst instigator of this whole mess. A couple a months ago I seen/heard the media talking at length, with absolute astonishment, of Sepp Blatter’s comments on hand shakes settling racism. Am I going mad or has the media being saying over and over on how, ‘only if he would have shook hands, this whole thing could have been settled’ ?
Furthermore, I believe the whole situation has been a misunderstanding. Looking back at it now, Suarez was put into a horrible situation. He approaches Evra, sees a lowered hand and moves past because he didn’t want to start something. Just like the John Terry-Wayne Bridge non-handshake. Now, in order to diffuse things, he’s been forced to admit he was sorry for this issue. What else is he going to say, “I didn’t think he wanted to shake?”
The investigation wasn’t to determine whether or not Suarez is a racist FFS.
Nobody – not even Evra – believes he is a racist. What we do believe, however, is that Suarez is GUILTY OF USING RACIALLY OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE. Now, whether the use of racially offensive language makes a person racist is another debate entirely, and something that has nothing to do with the FA or football in general. The “Suarez is a racist” chant sung by United fans is terrace WUMmery – nothing more.
The truth is Suarez said a racially offensive word – he admitted so to El Pais – and only ever claimed cultural ignorance which the FA quite rightly dismissed as Suarez has played in Europe for 5 years where the term is considered offensive. So he should have known not to use the term.
The poster above me is right. You are a part of the media. Your podcast directly influences Liverpool fans’ opinions. And when you get the facts wrong like you have done here, you spread misinformation and bullshit, and you end up with the situation we are in now where a section of the LFC fanbase wrongly feel victimised and persecuted. They genuinely can’t see what the world of football is telling them, from the Kick Racism people to ex-players like Collymore and Hamman. And that is partly your doing.
Where, exactly, did we get the ‘facts’ wrong?
You didn’t get any facts wrong Andy because you haven’t put anything forward as fact, but, as always, as well discussed and thoughful opinion. I think the 2 critical posts above illustrate exactly what has blown this whole situation up out of control, that people will pick and choose out of this what suits their agenda.
What I heard on today’s podcast was well balanced, open and honest discussion by a group of true Reds. Keep up the good work because there were some excellent points made today that echo my own mixed feelings of anger, tribalism, and embarrassment over this whole episode.
I think it was Earl who said as a club we have a massive opportunity to make something good out of this. I really hope so, because having my 6 year old son coming home from his half term footy camp in tears because he’s been called racist by a group of older kids just for wearing a Liverpool shirt is something I lay firmly at the feet of irresponsible media and bad handling of the situation by the club (and by management I don’t mean Kenny).
Keep up the good work guys, you shine out above all the unbalanced and sensationalist shite written about us in the media.
You said we didn’t play too badly against Utd.
Europe does not have a monolithic culture. Why in the world would his time spent in the Netherlands, affect his understanding of the English language or British culture? It is not a racially offensive word, it is a circumstantially offensive word, do not apply English standards upon the Spanish language.
Suarez andate de ese pais de mierda y dejalos que se pudran ingleses amargos!!!
Amigo, no todo ingles son armagas, solo Mancs y gringos mojigato.
Liverpool ama Suarez!
Lo siento por mi mal espanol, soy de los Estados Unidos.
Ok, Zach im sorry pero no me gusta como estan tratando a Suarez, todos estamos contra el racismo y utilizar algo tan delicado como esto para atacar a Suarez ademas de feo es injusto, no me gusta nada como la prensa Inglesa a manipulado y lo a atacado y aunque en Inglaterra el Liverpool es mi equipo favorito tampoco me gusta como desde la directiva se lo esta dejando solo aunque se que lo hacen para no perjudicar mas las cosas, se olvidan que esto es futbol y el futbol es algo mas pasional que los frios despachos. Saludos.
Si, que lo dices es la verdad. Como la prensa tratando Suarez es un desgracia y pensamiento el caso de Suarez es importante para la lucha de racismo esta ignorante. Pero, Liverpool han defendido Suarez para el todo tiempo. Yo concuro que futbol es mas de un corporacion.
Comprendo que quieres Suarez salga por un pais diferente pero quiero Suarez marca goles por Liverpool :).
Saludos.
Well in to all the lads who are involved every week, ep 29 is brilliant again, simply brilliant.
I’m waiting with baited breath for the in depth explanation of all the “facts” that the lads have got wrong, because from where i’m sitting the debates look at all sides fairly.
Not only that, the lads have also actually read the shitehouse 115 page document. Have those that are accusing them of getting things wrong? You’ll find that in the last massive discussion, just after the findings were released (i forget which episode it was), the fact that no one in the findings thinks that suarez is a racist was brought up.
Incredibly important podcast that needs to be listened to by every single Red and should be required listening for our board and owners too. Even our critics could learn a thing or two from this. Outstanding work lads.
Forza – People like you are exactly the reason this issue hasn’t gone away. People are labeling Suarez as a racist when there’s no evidence to suggest that.
You say, ‘Suarez is GUILTY OF USING RACIALLY OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE’ with conviction whilst proclaiming that everyone else is spreading misinformation and bullshit. If you cared to stick to the facts (all we have is the fa report) there’s a subtle, but important, difference in what you’re saying and what the fa found him guilty of.
The charges were – Did Suarez use abusive or insulting words to Evra and if he did, did those insulting / abusive words make reference to ethnic origin / colour.
Suarez was found guilty of the above but at no point was he found guilty of racially offensive language. In fact, the words ‘racially offensive’ doesn’t appear once in the report.
Suarez used the term ‘negro’ in a conversation in Spanish, which translated to English obviously means black. You go on to say that as he’s lived in Europe 5 years he should be aware that term is not acceptable. I would ask at this point, are you confusing the word ‘negro’ in Spanish with the English word ‘negro’ pronounced neegro, which Suarez certainly didn’t use in it’s English form, which may have been considered wrong. If the conversation was in Spanish then we have to translate it directly to English and not translate half of the sentence in Spanish and the other half in English. I ask because I’m not convinced the word ‘black’ is unacceptable in Europe. I regularly hear the police say we’re looking for a white male or a black male. Now, if we were to ask, did the police refer to ethnic origin / race in that statement the answer is certainly yes. Are they making racist remarks, then no.
So, after mentioning the term black (whether in a racist context or not) Suarez had to be found guilty of the charges as he made reference to skin colour. Nowhere does it say this reference of the word black is racist as you boldly state with conviction. In fact, nowhere in the report does it say Suarez is racist, only that he tried to provoke Evra to gain competitive advantage and referenced skin colour.
I hope you can see from the above how you’ve interpreted the findings in the wrong way and in future stop spreading misinformation and bullshit. It doesn’t help anyone and just makes the situation worse.
You make a good argument…almost :) You do what most biased people do when “logically” trying to justify a situation or action. Your tone when referring to your protagonist clearly portrays him as such. Since when were they having a “conversation”? I do not believe Evra’s story in its entirety, but for Suarez to say that he was merely being friendly to Evra is an outright lie. He admitted as much during questioning. That is why his case was not believed. By the way, in my country we have almost the exact same swear as “Your sister’s c…” It is not supposed to refer to a family member in general but is used as an insult. Suarez merely tried to insult Evra in return, but made the mistake of using race in this regard. The whole situation could have been handled better by LFC and would have resulted in fewer fans being made look stupid by defending him ad nauseum. We all have intelligence (to some degree). Use it. True support does not mean having to discard your own ethics and morals.
I agree with most of what you say, Jaques. Suarez was obviously trying to wind Evra up and vice versa and in no way do i think the ‘dialogue’ between them was friendly. Absolutely not. Again, I agree the club could have handled it better and in turn helped some of us fans too. The only point I actually wanted to make in the above regarded the slight but extremely important distortion from referring to race to becoming a racist. I appreciate your valid point but I personally believe that despite being partisan towards Liverpool, I try to stick to the facts as best I can.
Tell you what is positive for me, this is distilling a group of LFC commentators who talk sense.
The talk sport lot and the Guardian etc have been exposed by all this. I’m just concerned and saddened that Suarez might well go because of this and he didn’t deserve that, past tense.
On the plus side we now know the score all round and we have gone from struggling to beating the premiership leaders, diffusing the new Spurs team and beating Fergie a couple of times, leading to that stinging that they feel. Bring forward the equality row, and lets see how long it is before Evra steps out of line or uses the race card to gain an advantage,
excellent again well balanced and as Earl said lets get out there in the communities and engage more with the people of liverpool of all creeds and colours and at least some good will come of this
Hi Chaps, new to this Podcast business but heard lots of great things about TAW. Can I download this straight on my phone via an app? On Android and have the listen app at present. Thanks for any advice. I’m on twitter at @TG_thegaffer if anyone wants to contact via that. Cheers.
From memory: I think if you click on the RSS link with your phone it will ask you what you want it opened with. If you select listen, it should work.
Brilliant, all sorted. Thanks to Jim & Nicholas.
There are heaps of apps for android phones – I use Pocket Casts. It downloads the podcast pretty much as soon as its available
Really good pod again guys,fantastic and balanced debate-about the only one you can find amongst the forest of media bias and crap. What I think makes this debate good (like previous ones) is that you go through the keys words and phrases in the report
Earl’s story about the young lad is just depressing.
The club have the excuse that the poor manner they have dealt with this is partly down to the internal damage caused by the cowboys.
But the sell by date is fast approaching,if not past on that get out clause.
Excellent discussion lads, and I was imressed at how calm it remained throughout. But I hope it’s the last on this topic as well!
Some of the comments in the comments section are a bit serious for this pod, I’ll lighten the mood. Am I the only person who chuckled at the ethnic/language football expert guy saying ”my wife’s Brazilian, I spend a lot of time down there” :)
* Technical issue with my previous post – I had more to say!!
Really good pod again guys,fantastic and balanced debate-about the only one you can find amongst the forest of media bias and crap. What I think makes this debate good (like previous ones) is that you go through the key words and phrases in the report and especially important in understanding the case. Nowhere in the mainstream media have I heard it properly explained the very important difference between ‘negro’ in this case and the loaded ‘neegro’ pronounciation. It’s a very important point – plenty of the British public made their mind up on Suarez when they read media reports saying he said Negro – “oh well, case closed” they thought.
The unbalanced media reporting of this case has been a travesty. Have a balanced debate, then let people make their minds up! Present the key pertinent points of the case, as I believe you guys have previously and then let people make their minds up. I have found the whole thing farcical – I’m not utterly convinced as to Suarez’s guilt – I know I want him to be innocent but only he can really be sure. But as has been said before, there’s no evidence for the police or CPS to look at this, it’s one man against another’s.
The treatment of Suarez vs John Terry by the media has been positively xenophobic / racist anyway – “nasty ill-educated little south-american being racist, well that’s no surprise”. I will stop ranting shortly, however one final observation. I listened to a podcast from the BBC’s discussion on 5 Live Sport’s program on Sunday, when Shaun Custis said “if it’s acceptable in his homeland, then his homeland needs to sort itself out”. I was stunned at that comment and is just one of many examples of the disgraceful and hypocritcal way this story has been covered. Also, the way the handshake story has been used again by the media as another great way to condemn the club as racist is shocking – I would respect Suarez’s right to not shake Evra’s hand totally, I just am frustrated that having promised LFC that he would do so that he didn’t go through with it.
Anyway, this podcast is a credit and has done itself proud on this issue particularly. Well done and always a great listen. Let’s hope the future issues and all about good football and the challenges for 4th place and cup success on the field, not what has now become an unwinnable argument off it.
Suarez referred to Evra’s colour and Evra (quite rightly, wouldn’t you?) got offended. Intent or linguistic differences between Uruguay / France / England don’t matter one bit. REALITY.
The ‘report’, with all it’s inconsistencies and biases, states that the FA (and Evra) don’t believe he’s racist, but the media rightly report “racially offensive” words / abuse. REALITY.
Stop, please stop, rattling on about whether he’s guilty or not. It actually doesn’t matter anymore – doesn’t anyone else get that?
This has gone far beyond one ‘wronged’ individual. Time to move on. It’s now about LFC. REALITY.
I’m sick to the bottom of my stomach with this. We need to stop tearing ourselves to bits.
I think we all wish it would go away in the same way we wish it’d never happened. The problem is, this week it hasn’t gone away. I’m sure next week we’ll be talking about cup success and a potential trophy. This week though we’re all back on the front foot again (if that makes sense) defending a player, who may not be whiter than white but has certainly suffered unfair treatment. The media today is full of stories that Liverpool will get rid of him in the summer. That makes it topical whether we like it or not and being partisan, makes us want to come out and fight his corner as neither the club and certainly the media are doing that.
I’m in 2 minds over criticism of players. After spending months defending Downing, saying he needs time to get over the different pressures and expectations that playing for Liverpool brings, followed by how he’s finally started to settle, I finally lost it on Saturday and admitted to anyone who’d listen (including Mancs) that I think he’s absolutely garbage.
I listen to the Anfield Wrap because i find the match analysis very well informed and accurate to an extent I don’t hear elsewhere. I just wonder though, how many none Liverpool fans listen. When one of you mentioned that you don’t like to criticise players in public, I completely understood where you were coming from although one side of me thought ‘this is our area to discuss our players and our performances’.
If Downing listens then maybe he deserves to hear what people think. Come on lads, stick the boot in when it gets to this level of wankness.
Great podcast as usual but was even more impressed with this one. The lads say what I feel and what I’d like to say in a way I could only dream of getting across. Gotta agree would be nice to see the club doing more stuff out in the real world with youth clubs etc. Would be nice to see the big stars and not just representatives doing this. I’m sure if the club could give players a list of possible activities or groups to visit they could pick one (or more) that actually interests them and therefore would be more up for it. I think the positiveness that would be gained from the likes of Suarez, Gerrard etc going out and doing things would be priceless to the public/community.
Great podcast. First time for me but won’t be the last.
It’s funny, but my respect for Gary Neville and even Rooney has gone up after Saturday. Neville’s honesty and backing for someone who doesn’t want to shake another player’s hand was a breath of fresh air, and Rooney’s observation that this spat was something to be sorted by the two players and no-one else was likewise laudable. That said, Suarez should have shook if for no other reason he promised the club he would; after the backing he’s received, he owed Kenny and rest of LFC at least that.
Our PR during this whole episode has been amateurish with perhaps only our legal department outdoing the PR side for incompetence. We need to fix this quickly. I take the point about our traditions and the soul of the club, but you can’t operate in 24/7 news environment with a boot room appraoch to media relations. They’ll eat you for breakfast.
I want to see Ayre become a much more prominent figure and take the non-footballing responsibilities off Kenny’s desk. Kenny is a football manager not a club spokesman and I feel for him. Let him do what he does best and deal with first-team footballing matters and nowt else. Too much love can kill you and I’ve half expected to wake up one morning these last 4 months to read that KD has walked again after finding it impossible to bear the strain. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.
Great podcast yet again. Let’s hope some good will come out of all this shit and the club can keep moving forward. And let’s also hope that in 3 months time we can discuss one or two trophies and 4th spot, instead of all the off field dramas that have engulfed the club these past few months
Not listened to the podcast yet, but as a United fan I have to smile when people bring up the ‘What Evra said about Suarez’ sister’ line in mitigation. It’s a sure sign that they haven’t read the report, as if they did, they’d see that the experts agreed that it’s a spanish expression, broadly translated (in this context) as ‘Effing Hell, why did you foul me’?. In any case, Suarez’ said he hadn’t heard what he said, and his defence accepted the experts view. Like Jacques above, I think they were bantering on the pitch (like every other player) and Suarez made a mistake and went too far.The part that is ‘one person’s word against another’ is how many times he said the offending word, but he’s admitted saying it once, and his defence that this was in a ‘friendly’ way is laughable.
Again, as a United fan, I’ve heard all sorts of nonsense about how this is a plot cooked up by Fergie and Evra to discredit LFC, but in my opinion, nobody from United has had to do anything. LFC have plotted against themselves. From the moment that Suarez admitted to Comolli, Kuyt, and Dalglish what he had said, then somebody should have smelt the headlines and got him in the United dressing room to apologize, as someone above says: ‘you can’t use boot room tactics in the modern media’. Instead you’ve got Dalglish setting the tone by saying untruthfully ‘Hasn’t he done this before?’. After that, you get those ridiculous T-Shirts, and a never-ending saga which I think might cost Kenny his job at the end of the season.
If you’re a United fan, you shouldn’t be listening to a Liverpool podcast. I wouldn’t touch a United podcast, or any of their forums, or any of their fanzines with a barge pole.
Obsessed…
Wow, I really had to take a virtual step back after reading your statement. You sir are obviously not a football fan. Your own biased viewpoint has severely degraded your attempts at intellectual banter. Football is not life or death. It is game. There is no place in my heart for HATRED regarding a game, but there is in yours. Do you force those close to you to adhere to your beliefs? Just because you feel the need not to broaden your own horizons, please do not persecute those who wish to broaden theirs. I seek no counter-comment from you, but merely some introspection. Life is shorter than we think.
Great episode. It’s refreshing to hear views regarding the Evra/Suarez debate without the crap thats thrown about everywhere else. You guys should be the PR team for LFC!!!!
Outstanding work as always, and your best podcast till date. Credit due for having brought fresh perspectives to an already widely discussed issue.
For me, this has been the low point of 12 years of following English football, to see how low the media, and the footballing fraternity in general have stooped. So, the FA has under their guard, half of Stamford Bridge making racist chants, the now ex-captain caught on tape making racist comments and they go all out on a 25-year old foreigner, with a case that wouldn’t stand for a second in a court of law, because they wanna drive racism out of football? Come on, get a grip! The hypocrisy!
And the media taking it out on this ignorant fool who was honest enough to admit using a certain word, cos he deemed it not racist in his language? The agenda-driven sections of the media, in trying to damage LFC’s reputation, have fanned the racist elements in football, and now there is a huge problem on our hands. Talk about irresponsibility.
Enough has been said about the unbelievable ineptitude of LFC’s PR, these are incredibly difficult times to be an LFC fan. Bootroom approach? really? We are being called a racist club, our fans across the world have been put on the defensive. So, wake the fuck up cos you know what? this is a different game we are playing now, and we will be butchered playing the good old way. (A great point about perceptions has been made in the podcast.)
On another note, is it worth releasing a transcript of the podcast maybe a couple of days later, for the LFC fraternity around the world who might not exactly be comfortable with the accent? :) I for one know a few mates in India who desperately wanna listen to this, but cant seem to get the accent.
lazyitis,
You’re right about Evra’s comment towards Suarez. It’s a pretty standard insult. What it does show is that Evra knows at least some Spanish. This is important for the following reason:
Evra’s initial claim was that Suarez called him a “n***er” “more than 10 times”. This is the story he took to Mariner’s room. Given the gravity of the charge against him, LFC shold have said nothing until legal advice had been sought (blunder #1), but as it is Suarez admitted on the spot to using “negro”.
Of course, Evra subsequently withdrew the initial charge and in the report he claims he was confused between the Spanish “negro” and the Italian “nero”. It’s a push to believe that someone who knows enough Spanish to say, “Concha de tu hermana” doesn’t know what my 6 year old learned from Dora the Explorer i.e. that the Spanish for black is “negro”, but I’m prepared to accept that this was genuine confusion on Evra’s part. However, the fact remains that the initial charge against Suarez was so serious that LFC had no choice but to defend. Evra’s false (albeit possibly innocently false) allegation made it impossible for Suarez or LFC to do what every man Jack now claims they should have done – apologise on the spot. They couldn’t apologise for something Suarez hadn’t done.
Following the claim by Evra, Mariner had no choice but to include this in his report, which in turn meant the FA had no choice but to launch an enquiry. Once the enquiry is under way, no party could or should be doing anything to prejudice their case. You can bet your life that the legal teams of LFC and MUFC were advising precisely this. Hence no meetings to seek rapprochement.
Given Suarez continued to protest his innocence, it’s difficult to know what Dalglish was supposed to do. Hang his player out to dry? He backed his player because he had no reason to disbelieve him. Remember, Suarez admitted in Mariner’s dressing-room to using “negro” without the need for anyone to have to extract this from him in a cross-examination. I’d suggest that is hardly the action of a man who think he is guilty of any crime, let alone one with racial overtones.
Further, given it was clear early on that there was no corroborating video evidence or independent witness testimony incriminating Suarez, almost every pundit and journo writing about this case pre-judgment concluded that it was extremely unlikely Suarez would be found guilty of the charges against him. It’s fair to say the judgment caught Liverpool by surprise and I don’t think they were the only ones. You now have a situation where one of LFC’s players is smeared as a racist, probably for the rest of his career (and it doesn’t matter that the FA report concludes otherwise – it is the inevitable result of a decision like this) on the basis of “probabilities” on the back of no evidence other than the word of another player who just so happens to play for their fiercest rivals. It ought to be possible for the fans of any other club – including MUFC – to understand why LFC feel aggrieved.
There is a conunter-factual universe out there where a 3-man commission came down 51-49% in favour of Suarez as opposed to 49-51% Evra or whatever it was. Again, anyone even making a pretence at objectivity ought to be able to see that the lack of corroborating evidence might have easily persuaded the commission to find the other way. This is what makes much of the moral certitude spewed by the likes of Samuel, Taylor, Holt and co. so difficult to stomach.
Unlike some of my fellow fans, I actually have very little problem with how MUFC have conducted themselves in all of this (assuming Evra’s initial claims were the result of genuine confusion). My issue is with the witten and broadcast media. With one or two exceptions, almost noone working in the industry has even attempted to accurately represent the LFC/Suarez perspective on this. We even had a situation currently where David Bond, the sports editor at the BBC has a blog on the BBC website in which he reports that Suarez was found to have called Evra “a negro”. That’s right, after 4 months and reams of copy, the sports editor at the biggest news site in the world can’t even recount the most basic of facts about this case. I’m sure this is not a wilfull misrepresentation on Bond’s part; indeed, there has been so much misinformation and downright lies written about this subject that almost anyone can be forgiven for regurgitating the most inaccurate of claims. Is it any wonder we’re exasperated?
Very good point mate. Well informed and actually a fairly unique perspective on this whole nonsense.
Hi, noticed a few errors.
Evra did not go to Mariner’s room and alleged Suarez called him a “n***er” “more than 10 times”. That is untrue.
Evra never “withdrew a charge”, even though I think you mean ’allegation’. But still, that didn’t happen.
Also very wrong to say “there was no corroborating video evidence”. Video evidence was clearly used by the commission to corroborate both accounts and was significant.
You’re also incorrect to say there is no evidence other than the testimonies of both players. There is plenty. 151 pages worth.
Finally, no where in the report does it state the commission considered it to be 51-49% in favour of Evra’s account, they clearly don’t think it’s anywhere near that. It’s wrong to suggest that.
But I agree with: “there has been so much misinformation and downright lies written about this subject that almost anyone can be forgiven for regurgitating the most inaccurate of claims. Is it any wonder we’re exasperated?”
Evra did not go to Mariner’s room and alleged Suarez called him a “n***er” “more than 10 times”. That is untrue.
Well he certainly changed his version of events from what he said to French TV, to what the Ref got through Ferguson.
Also very wrong to say “there was no corroborating video evidence”. Video evidence was clearly used by the commission to corroborate both accounts and was significant.
Haha you forget to mention though the video evidence fails significantly to validate any of Evra’s outlandish claims. If Suarez would have said half of what Evra claims he had said a lip reader would have got it. Unless Luis is a world class ventriliquist.
Lazyitis, the expert’s definition, in the report, of “Concha su hermana” is wrong it’s far worse than “fuckin hell”. In fact if you feel it means that just pop yourself off to South America, wonder into a bar and use the phrase. Similarly the word used by Evra- Sudaca ( South American) is another highly charged racial insult.
As for Jacques saying it’s just on pitch banter I have played football in SA and there is an insulting phrase very similar to “Concha” which would bring you an awful lot of hurt if you used it
Lovely podcast again except for the “We played well” bit – that’s just apologism, we were bluddy awful. Nice to hear Rob finally admit Downing is gash and as regards his point of not wanting to slate a player on air ( but is willing to do so off) as long as its constructive,whats the problem?
Very worrying however to hear Earl’s tale of abuse in the stands, The Wrap cannot and should not brush over this and as supporters who are in a position to do so, should maybe investigate what is going on in the stands of Anfield, is it a small issue or is there a wider problem??. For the kid not to want to go back and support Liverpool is worrying.
My heart goes to Liverpool fans in all this affair, even though I’m not a fan of LFC (Ajax fan here).
So right of TAW to address it.
People who suffered the most were fans, so many people were made so UNHAPPY over the last few months, over what is supposed to be entertainment, a beautiful game, something to enjoy.
FA was amazingly irresponsible, and sadistic, in timing of their document releases, they didn’t think of people, the fans, at all.
They were the Grinch who stole Christmas, and New Year. People were supposed to enjoy football Christmas madness and instead they got this. I wonder if there was a spike in heart attacks, ulcers and depression in Liverpool over the last months with people being constantly upset over this.
But the club, and Suarez, also bear responsibility for that. They owe it to the fans to make them happy, to stay out of controversies, and yes, to engage with the community.
For Christ sake, give Suarez something to do, he was the first to volounteer to work with kids and youth teams of Ajax, the first up for any charity work there. And he went to LFC reserves games on his own accord. He’d be eager to do penance for the club and Kenny after letting them down with this handshake thing – and to the fans too.
The club needs to lighten up, there needs to be positive PR, humour, work with fans, with kids, Anfield Cat stories instead of all this doom and gloom and war mentality.
LFC has nothing to lose by it, and everything to gain.
Winning games on the pitch would do wonders too.
Saying that, I don’t think that injustice done to Suarez by FA should be swept under the carpet, don’t think he’d ever move on from that while everyone would keep heckling him as a rasist.
And it would do LFC image a huge lift if the narrative of the affair could be changed to accept that he might be innocent, because he wasn’t proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt and because there’s plenty of reasonable doubt to be had.
That the bad guy in this affair is not Suarez, or Evra, or SAF, or even the press (press could be LFC friends if handled correctly) – it’s the FA, who were irresponsible in their handling of this business. They had no right to blame the man for something he denied to do, with no collaboration whatsoever, and they, and the whole British football, and lots of innocent people of Liverpool, are now reaping the consequences.
But the two things – moving on from war mentality, changing the subject to positive things, and still fighting Suarez corner – are not mutually exclusive and the former is crucial in helping the latter, to help the public opinion, and media, to mellow out and accept LFC POV.
Actually that was starting to happen before this handshake folly, and the handshake was probably thought by LFC as the further step on this road, to mellow out a public, that’s why they pressured Suarez to do that…
Madness and folly for LFC I say, Suarez should have been started on the bench and the whole thing should have been avoided. Oh well, apologizing was the right thing to do, and the positive here is that it’s again thrust in the public view that the matter is unresolved, that Suarez and Evra are still aggrieved and that FA had achieved nothing, it’s all FA’s fault, and that should be the target for LFC to hit, via the media. As the media is eager to do that already, with Terry/Capello fiasco and the whole forced handshakes at the start business.
Hi Claire,
Evra did not go to Mariner’s room and alleged Suarez called him a “n***er” “more than 10 times”. That is untrue.
You’re right. He didn’t mention a number of times in Mariner’s changing-room, he just alleged the “n**ger” bit. The “ten times” qualifier came in his interview with Canal+. Detail is important, altough in this case my point still stands: Suarez was being accused of something he couldn’t reasonably apologise for given he hadn’t said what was alleged. I’d hope you’d agree that, whatever you think of of his use of “negro”, it is rather different to “n**ger”.
“Evra never “withdrew a charge”, even though I think you mean ’allegation’. But still, that didn’t happen.”
This is semantics. He initially claimed Suarez had said one thing, and later (willlingly and you might even say proactively) amended his claim/charge/allegation/whatever you want to call it to something else. This is in the report. His explanation was that he thought “nero” was Spanish for black and that “negro” meant “n**ger”. As I say, it’s in the report.
“Also very wrong to say “there was no corroborating video evidence”. Video evidence was clearly used by the commission to corroborate both accounts and was significant.”
More semantics. All video evidence ‘incriminating’ Surez is circumstantial. Even his fiercest critics should be able to concede this. There is no shortage of video, yet nowhere is there any footage of Suarez mouthing the words he is supposed to have uttered. Again in the report, the commission refers to Suarez’s mouth and/or face being obscured at crucial moments in the dialogue. It’s perfectly true that commission did use video evidence to support their narrative, in that when Suarez was supposed to have said X, they point to a reaction from Evra, etc., etc., but this is, by definition, inference and conjecture.
“You’re also incorrect to say there is no evidence other than the testimonies of both players. There is plenty. 151 pages worth.”
Actually there’s 115 pages, but it”s not particularly relevant whethere there are 15, 115 or 15,000 pages unless you’re a “feel the width” sort of person. We can discuss the merits of circumstantial evidence when you have a man’s reputation on the line, but the fact remains there was no independent witness testimony that could support Evra’s claim and there was no video footage showing Suarez to have said what was alleged. There were lots of other people about and lots of cameras at the game, but nothing. Does this mean Suarez definitely *did not* say what is alleged? No, we can’t say that. But in terms of the balance of probabilities, is it more likely that De Gea or someone else or at least one of the cameras would have picked up *something* had Suarez done what was alleged? I’d say that has to be every bit as probable. Wouldn’t you?
“Finally, no where in the report does it state the commission considered it to be 51-49% in favour of Evra’s account, they clearly don’t think it’s anywhere near that. It’s wrong to suggest that.”
Oh come one. I clearly said: “as opposed to 49-51% Evra or whatever it was”. None us can put a perentage on it, but the salient point is that a reasonable person ought to be able to conclude that, absent anything other than circumstantial evidence in support of Evra’s claim, another commission at another time could just as easily have come down the other way. The question we should be asking is whether the FA ought to be instituting proceedings against a professional player that can smear him as a racist purely on a balance of probabilities? Isn’t this a case for the criminal courts? Indeed, given Evra clearly beleived he had been called a “n**ger” multiple times, why on earth was this not reported to the police? Just in case there’s any doubt, Suzrez would need to be shown to have used that word once and I’d want him out of my club for good.
Claire, if the police had been asked to step in here as I believe should have happened, would do you think the result would have been? I know it’s a hypothetical, but would you seriously harbour any expectation that this case would have got within a country mile of a court room?
When talking to the referee Evra is speaking in English about what Suarez said, not accusing Suarez of speaking English.
My refernece to the 115 pages was to illustrate your misunderstanding of ‘evidence‘, which is everything put forward, be it witness statements, language experts, video, testimony, interviews, referees notes etc.
Having no direct evidence such as video or sound does not support one account over the other and is not necessary for the standard of proof required. But video evidence is key because it forced Suarez to change his initial statement that the exchange was friendly.
The standard of proof was not simply “balance of probabilities” but the flexible civil standard of the balance of probability, which means in this case the standard is ‘highly probable‘, due to the seriousness of the case.
As you know a criminal court would require a higher standard of proof still and, unlike the commission, would also need to prove intent.
Due to Suarez’s critical inconsistencies compared to Evra’s account, the commission clearly shows the chances that the allegations are true is highly probably.
Hope that helps.
Due to Suarez’s critical inconsistencies compared to Evra’s account, the commission clearly shows the chances that the allegations are true is highly probably.
So you see how with the lack of any clear evidence, why people might be annoyed with Evra;s version of events being taken as gospel
Evra used a figure of speech in that TV interview. Suarez’s side accepted that.
There being no direct evidence to prove either account doesn’t help one side over another…I don’t understand that point.
But you’re wrong, the video evidence did corroborate Evra’s account. But it’s how it contradicts Suarez’s account that leads him to change repeatedly to fit in with it better.
The video evidence corrobrated nothing of Evra’s account. It doesn’t show any of what Evra claims Suarez said, and you know that. All that happened with the video evidence is, the panel basically decided in their opinion it showed Suarez was acting aggressively.
It doesn’t back up Evra’s version of events, not one it. Except for in the panel’s opinion
Getting boring. But the video evidence is consistent with Evra’s account but highly inconsistent with Suarez’s. That is why Suarez had to change his mind over the exchanges being conciliatory and why he kept changing when his use of the word occurred.
Which is hardly surprising when Evra was allowed to review the video evidence twice before appearing before the panel whereas Suarez was curiously not given the opportunity to.
Wrong. Suarez and his representatives had all the video evidence they wanted in advance of the hearing and actually some the FA didn’t!
One last point on the regulatory commission report itself: I do hope people remember what it is they are reading when the pick up the report. This is a document written by the 3 people who found Suarez guilty and its sole purpose is to provide justiifcation for that conclusion. I’m not criticising the fact a reprot was written in any way – I’m glad a report was published – but it’s a rather circular logic that leads one that conclude that Suarez must be guilty because the report is so persuasive. I mean, I should bloody hope so.* They’ve just trashed a man’s character, probably irreparably; it’s a minimum requirement that the people responsible are capable of mustering a coherent argument for having done so.
*Of course, some of us would dispute that it manages to be persuasive at all.
***”When talking to the referee Evra is speaking in English about what Suarez said, not accusing Suarez of speaking English.”***
Why are you disputing a point I am not making? My point is that Evra initially claimed Suarez had called him a “n**ger” and later retracted this. I was making this point in response to an earlier comment asking why Suarez hadn’t immediately apologised, as in, he couldn’t apologise for something he hadn’t said.
I take it you now accept that Evra, accompanied by SAF, entered Mariner’s room after the match and claimed Suarez had called him a “n**ger”?
***”My reference to the 115 pages was to illustrate your misunderstanding of ‘evidence‘”,***
That may have been the intention but it doesn’t illustrate what you think it does.
***”which is everything put forward, be it witness statements, language experts, video, testimony, interviews, referees notes etc.”***
But of course. And as you know but do not acknowledge, not all evidence is equal. There’s a qualitative difference between, for example, the testimony of a third party that confirms an account of a first or second party, and a third party who merely repeats what the first or second party told them contemporaneously.
If you’d like to refer me to the evidence against Suarez that cannot be legitimately described as circumstantial, I’d like to hear it. For sure there are inconsistencies in Suarez’s account but nothing like the smoking gun some would have us believe. Indeed there are inconsistencies (or rather glaring consistencies – read on) in Evra’s case against Suarez (and I don’t just mean the “n**ger”/”negro” one). For example, the statements of Valencia, Hernandez, Anderson and Nani all say the same thing: that Evra had told them that Suarez had said he wouldn’t speak to Evra because “he doesn’t talk to blacks”. Fine, except Evra’s only account of what he told his team-mates doesn’t mention this: he says only that he told his team-mates that Suarez had said he kicked him (Evra) because he was black. So the one thing Evra maintains he told his team-mate witnesses is not mentioned by any of them; yet they all somehow manage to recount an identical version of what Evra supposedly told them, even though Evra doesn’t say he told them this? Nothing remotely odd about that, is there? The commission square this circle in the following way: Evra must have told his team-mates that Suarez had said he wouldn’t speak to him because he was black because this is what they all say; also, it’s perfectly possible that all four simply forgot the one thing that Evra does he told them.
I’m not making this up. I don’t have to, as the commission do it for me. See para 125 in the report.
As for the language experts, their contributions can be summed up thus: if Suarez did say what he claims he said in the way he claims he said it, that would be fine. If Suarez said what Evra claims in the way Evra claims he said it, that would not be fine. In other words, the evidence offered by the language experts is wholly neutral. In fact, one point they do make is that Commolli’s version of what Suarez supposedly told him he had said to Evra isn’t even correct Spanish, much less a strain of Spanish that Montevidean (I know he wasn’t born there, but he spent his formative years there) Suarez would have uttered. In other words, unless we’re now being asked to believe Suarez doesn’t know how to speak his native tongue, Commolli’s recollection of what he was apparently told by Suarez *must* be compromised. It’s flawed evidence, yet instead of being ignored the apparent inconsistency with Suarez’s account is used to condemn him.
Last point on the Suarez’ “inconsistencies”: Suarez could have claimed that he spent the entire time he was in conversation with Evra asking him out on a date. That would compromise his credibility as a witness, but it does nothing to add any weight to Evra’s claim that he was repeatedly racially abused. The weight of evidence that sustains such a claim is not altered. It’s one thing to highlight inconsistencies in one party’s evidence, but quite another to get from there to believing every last word that drops from the mouth of the other party absent any other independent evidence. This is where the commission erred in my, and other’s opinion.
***”The standard of proof was not simply “balance of probabilities” but the flexible civil standard of the balance of probability, which means in this case the standard is ‘highly probable‘, due to the seriousness of the case.”***
I’m afraid that’s just flat-out wrong. The flexible civil standard of the balance of probability requires a greater *burden of evidence* to prove a more serious charge, not a higher standard than the simple balance of probability. The standard is not altered, it’s just that for more serious cases more evidence is required. It is therefore entirely possible that the commission came down 51-49% against Suarez, although I of course make no such claim. See paras 76-80 in the report. Also, look at 75 (Burden of Proof) that makes it clear it is for the FA to prove its case, not Suarez to disprove it.
I think your intervention here is helpful, but not in the way you intended. I’ve pointed out that burden of proof lay with the FA, and due to the serious nature of the charges a greater burden of evidence was required to prove the FA’s case. This all links to my point that even if Suarez’s evidence were as inconsistent as some contend (and it isn’t, at least not materially more so than Evra’s), this does nought to add any weight to the charges against him.
***”As you know a criminal court would require a higher standard of proof still and, unlike the commission, would also need to prove intent.”***
And as I think you know, this is precisely why Evra chose not to plough that furrow, even though his initial (at least claimed) belief was that he’d been called a “n**ger” multiple times. This, for me, is the most damning evidence against Evra. I find it inconceivable that having been abused in such an egregious manner he chose not to involve the police and satisfied himself with a FA enquiry.
***”Hope that helps.”***
As above, you certainly were very helpful. Thanks.
great post. Theres just so many inconsistencies and downright ludicrous conclusions made in that report anyone arguing it was fair is just basically dishonest or at best utterly ignorant. Theres opinion, everyones entitled to one. But you can’t argue with facts, and the facts are there as you’ve presented them.
I also think there was some clear bias in the report, for example, claiming Suarez and Evra were obscured at key points was Suarez was supposed to have said the these he said. Evra claims he used more than a few things, enough that the likelihood of each single utterance being blocked out to be utterly ridiculously unlikely. Its more likely, those words just weren’t said.
Evra did understand the English meaning of the incident to contain ‘n**ger’, but it’s wrong to say he retracted anything, he only came to understand it’s meaning more accurately. To use the word ‘retract’ suggests he changed his account of the actual words used in the incident.
Even though you think the commission doesn’t have enough evidence to prove the charge, despite the inconsistent mess that is Suarez’s statements, you do believe that Evra not aiming to get Suarez prosecuted in a criminal court is somehow “damning evidence” against Evra. That is a good example of using differing standards.
And you’re right, it is still the balance of probabilities used, but it being flexible means they have to be satisfied to a greater degree and require more cogent evidence. So if it is 51%, it being flexible means they are more satisfied it is that. Which of course makes the use of % misleading and pointless. All this is important to make clear if you do though, because many supporters actually state the balance of probabilities shouldn’t be used for such a serious offence without realising the seriousness of it is factored in.
You know all this though, but for those that didn’t, I hope that helps.
All wrangling and differences of opinion aside. The balance of probablilities argument might have made sense to me personally if lets just say Evra’s story was totally consistent and backed up by say several damning pieces of evidence. But his version of events is backed up by little evidence and there are certainly inconsistencies, the inconsistencies which occured during Luis giving his evidence were used against him, but any inconsistencies on the Evras part were ridculously overlooked in just about every instance.
Couple of points: At no point (unless someone can find it) does Evra say he called him whatever ‘more than 10 times’, he says ‘at least 10 times’. We now know that to be 7 times, so you can make your own mind up whether it’s acceptable to say ‘at least 10 times’.
The evidence also says that despite the confusion over language (negro, nero) Evra still feels that calling someone black on the pitch is wrong.
Also, as I said before, the ‘Concha’ stuff wasn’t heard by Suarez, and his team accepted the expert views that it’s not all that offensive. I doubt i’d use that sort of language in a bar, but if i’d been kicked by someone spanish in the hurly-burly of a match, then I might do. I remember going on an exchange to Barcelona when I was 14, and the only language swapped by the lads of both countries were inevitably the swear words. I can understand why Evra might not be fluent in spanish, but would still know a swear-word like that.
Finally, a Liverpool supporting mate put me onto the site. It reminds me of an lfc version of United We Stand, and I was a big fan of ‘The End’ back in the day.
hey guys, there was a lot of sense talked on the podcast, but I’d only like to raise one main issue. I don’t know if you are taking a hard enough look at suarez’s role in this. A lot of the analysis doesn’t include the uncomfortable fact that Suarez’s entire defence was found to be nonsense.
Supporting a player is very important, but blind support is very damaging. You owe it to yourselves to critically examine luis suarez’s behaviour. his interests aren’t the same as liverpool’s interests, as can be seen by the position he put Kenny dalglish in by changing his mind about shaking hands. Kenny had announced publicly that he was going to shake hands, and then was ambushed by jeff shreeves and made look like a fool. Suarez is only thinking about suarez, and not liverpool.
When suarez says that in uruguay “Negro” is only friendly, he’s not telling you the whole truth. he’s leaving out that If you are having a row with a black person, it is offensive. And the video evidence showed that they were having a row. Basically If suarez said Negro to a uruguayan patrice evra during a row in a uruguayan league match, he’d get a dig. He owed it to dalglish, the club and the fans to tell the whole truth.
This partial truth completely destroyed his evidence when it was pointed out by the spanish language experts. It meant That liverpool and kenny dalglish put themselves on the line in a major way to defend someone, whose account of events didn’t stand a chance in front of a commission. Suarez should never have put them in that position.
indeed there is no way he would have tried to pull that one on Rafa Benitez, who has a large no of argentinian contacts and would have quickly found out that he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
And when he didn’t shake hands with evra, he didn’t know, or care that it was going to bring down an enormous unnecessary shitstorm on the manager and the club. Ultimately he broke his word to kenny dalglish and made him look foolish. If he was thinking about his responsibilities to the club and the manager who had done so much for him he would have shook his hand, and then everyone could have started to put the whole thing behind them.
I appreciate that there is a very strong tendency to support your own player through thick or thin. But Ultimately you have to stop and think. many professional footballers are grand, (for instance the bits i’ve read of Didi hamman’s book are fantastic) but A lot of professional footballers are awful arseholes. And the ones that play for your own team are no different (For instance peter Schmiechel is the best goalkeeper I’ve ever seen, but I will cheerfully admit that he’s an awful C*nt, and I have no difficulty whatsoever believing that he said very bad things to ian wright, but crucially it was investigated and couldn’t be proved)
Suarez is a great player, but a bit of a lunatic, and a narky little sod on the pitch, and he would do anything to wind up an opponent. The likelihood is that he probably did say something to Evra, to wind him up without realizing how serious it was. If the first one wound evra up, he probably said it a couple of more times. (I don’t think he was racist, but that he would use racist language to wind someone up because he didn’t think it was that big a deal.) He did admit to commolli in spanish, and to kuyt in dutch that he said that he had kicked evra “because he was black.”
The thing that is bizarre is that no-one in the liverpool dressing room recognized that that is a flat out admission of racial abuse as defined by the FA. Damien Commolli went straight down to the fourth official and got him to write down that Suarez had used Evra’s skin colour to wind him up. If suarez didn’t get him to change his story, he would have been convicted on that alone.
If Dalglish and Commolli knew FA procedure, and were fully aware of the racism protocols, they would have known that Suarez had f*cked up and was looking at a four game ban, and would have made him go down and apologize immediately and say that it was a terrible misunderstanding. What man utd were doing was irrelevant. They should have done the right thing themselves.
He would have gotten a four game ban, but it would have shown that liverpool were on top of things, and proved beyond all possible doubt that they were seriously committed to the fight against racism. There would have been a bit of a media storm over suarez, but it would have been over very quickly and liverpool as a club would have had their reputation enhanced.
Even suarez’s reputation wouldn’t have been as badly damaged as it currently is, because it would have been seen as a misunderstanding that he was sorry for. It would have been just one of those things that you get when you are bringing players from all around the world together. suarez had been punished, and liverpool had done the right thing.
the reason that liverpool have attracted such negative comment is that they did the exact opposite, went on the offensive, and said things like Evra should be banned if suarez is found not guilty. (which by the way is indefensible in a broader context and horrified a lot of neutrals) But he had admitted to them that he had actually said something really dodgy. Their response was entirely wrong given their starting position.
They consistently put their obligations to support suarez over their obligations to the club, and to a certain extent, they were behaving as though the player was bigger than the club. And when you start thinking like that you are in real trouble. Liverpool have lost sight of the bigger picture and as a result are making a hell of a lot of bad mistakes.
Good post that.
I think most Liverpool fans would reasonably accept Suarez was wrong to say Negro. No ifs or buts. It was just stupid even if he himself thought it wouldn’t be offensive.
But the point for most liverpool fans always has been Evra’s account of things was not proven. You have Claire posting on this claiming the video evidence and numerous other pieces of evidence support Evra’s version fo events were Suarez basically went on a racist tirade. I’d love for someone to find this magical evidence and point it out, what I mean to say is point out cold hard evidence which isn’t someones opinion. Thats what the report was full of, the panel’s opinion and circumstanial evidence from third parties. There is NO direct evidence Suarez said all the things Evra said he said. Absolutely none.
Thats what Rankles more than anything. That Suarez has been accused and essentially found guilty of doing what Evra claims he did and that simply cannot be proven nor does the evidence even come close to suggesting did.
“But the point for most liverpool fans always has been Evra’s account of things was not proven. You have Claire posting on this claiming the video evidence and numerous other pieces of evidence support Evra’s version fo events were Suarez basically went on a racist tirade.”
Hmm. I think that you’re not taking account of how the commission works. Evra made a series of accusations about luis suarez. This formed the basis of the FA’s case against him. These accusations were put to the commision and luis suarez. His explanation of events in response simply wasn’t credible. If you’re defence isn’t credible, the prosecution just has to avoid screwing up to get a conviction. That’s how these things work.
The Accusations were found to be more credible, and not inconsistent with the 3rd party evidence, whereas the denial and the claim that evra made it up wasn’t credible. It’s not beyond reasonable doubt, but that’s simply not the way that football operates. A lot of very important stuff is decided under the same rules in civil courts all the time.
Basically suarez’s defence was so unconvincing that he didn’t deny anything. A bad defence is worse than no defence because it makes you look even more guilty. He also gave the Panel no reason to doubt evra’s word. That is why he was convicted.
” I’d love for someone to find this magical evidence and point it out, what I mean to say is point out cold hard evidence which isn’t someones opinion. That’s what the report was full of, the panels opinion and circumstantial evidence from third parties. There is NO direct evidence Suarez said all the things Evra said he said. Absolutely none.”
But direct evidence isn’t always necessary. this case was decided on the balance of probabilities. The commission listens to the accusations, they listen to defence and they decide how probable it is that the allegations are true, how probable it is that the defence is true.
If the defence is solid and plausible, then you need stronger evidence. However, if you make a mess of your defence like suarez did, then you cast doubts on your credibility. So the probability they attached to suarez’s account of events was basically zero.
This means that if evra’s evidence was more or less consistent with the available evidence and he was a sufficiently convincing witness, then it was going to be a fairly straightforward decision.
There is also the issue of inconsistencies. The testimony of third parties was useful in that it pointed out inconsistencies. The thing is that there are usually inconsistencies in people’s accounts of events. nobodies recollection is perfect. In a situation like this, it really comes down to whose inconsistencies are the most damaging. The point was that there were some inconsistencies in Evra’s account, but by in large the available evidence supported it.
The problem for suarez was that the inconsistencies were much bigger and more damaging to his credibility. He changed his story in more fundamental ways, and his account that he was not having a row was inconsistent with the video evidence.
I appreciate that there is no tape recording of him saying it, but you have to consider that if he was innocent, he’d have had a better and more convincing story, and wouldn’t have admitted to racially abusing him when he was asked in the immediate aftermath of the game.
Liverpool have at all times behaved as though there was not even the slightest possibility that suarez could have done this. I think that’s an unreasonable position to adopt. he’s no paragon of virtue, The man is a pantomime villain. He bit someone for god’s sake. He’s a bloody professional footballer for god’s sake. These people do stupid things all the time.
most people who aren’t liverpool fans could easily see suarez doing something bad. And indeed he was found guilty of it. That may not be enough for liverpool fans. But it is enough for everyone else. And quite frankly most ordinary people think he did it, and that liverpool and their fans have gone completely crazy.
Something that match going fans should consider is that when liverpool fans boo patrice evra, all the rest of the world sees is 40,000 mostly white guys shouting abuse at the victim of racial abuse. It doesn’t matter what you think you are doing, or what you believe. It looks awful. It reminds everyone of what luis suarez was found guilty of, and how badly liverpool have handled the affair.
United can’t play liverpool until next season. Hopefully those apologies will mark the end of the whole thing. But if liverpool fans carry it on, or respond to taunts, they will only be giving it oxygen to this whole sorry affair. I hope that liverpool fans have to good sense to start acting in their own interests. being right or wrong about luis suarez doesn’t matter any more. It’s all about restoring the club’s dignity and reputation.
“This partial truth completely destroyed his evidence when it was pointed out by the spanish language experts.”
Sorry, that’s not right. The experts disputed Suarez’s assertion that “negro” would normally be followed by another term of abuse (e.g. “negro de mierda”) if it was intended to be racially offensive, but they did agree that *if* Suarez said what he claims he said the way he claims he said it, then it was fine. I agree the commission concluded that Suarez did not say “negro” in the way he maintained, but that’s a different point.
The commission (see 261 in the report) were hung up on the fact that Suarez’s description of his use of “negro” changed from “friendly and affectionate” in his original witness statement to “conciliatroy” in his deposition. They write:
***It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Mr Suarez used the words conciliation and conciliatory to describe his use of the word “negro” because the experts had used those terms to describe the circumstances in which the word would not generally be offensive in Uruguay.***
I’d say it’s very easy to avoid that conclusion, myself. Moreoever, the substance of Suarez’s point remains the same: friendly/affectionate or conciliatroy, it’s clear what he is trying to say here. The commission reject this and go on to say:
***This was followed, after the referee had spoken to the players, by Mr
Suarez putting his hand on the back of Mr Evra’s head in a way which, in our judgment, was intended to aggravate Mr Evra.***
Not only is this an entirely ungenerous interpretation of Suarez’s action on the day, it is, whether the commission are right or not, pure conjecture. They cannot possibly know what was going through Suarez’s mind as he reached out to Evra to pat his head, yet their conclusion that Suarez didn’t use “negro” in the friendly/conciliatory way claimed is based on their interpretation of such acts as designed to cause aggravation. Self-serving or what?
The rest of your comment as regards LFC ought to have displayed greater humility and sought to apologise earlier in the cycle is, I think, answered by the fact that the original charge against Suarez was that he’d called Evra a “n**ger” multiple times. It’s not clear when Evra conceded that this was not in fact the case, but I think this goes some way to explaining why positions quickly became as entrenched as they did.
And just to reiterate the point one more time: Suarez’s defence might have contained more holes than the Open Championship (it didn’t), but as he carried no burden of proof this matters little. The FA had to prove their case and pointing out that Suarez’s evidence is at times inconsistent doesn’t contribute to that one iota.
Couple of points:
“When suarez says that in uruguay “Negro” is only friendly, he’s not telling you the whole truth. he’s leaving out that If you are having a row with a black person, it is offensive. And the video evidence showed that they were having a row. Basically If suarez said Negro to a uruguayan patrice evra during a row in a uruguayan league match, he’d get a dig. He owed it to dalglish, the club and the fans to tell the whole truth. ”
He never said it was only friendly, he said it was usually friendly (this has been backed up by multiple language experts, and native Spanish speakers) and that he meant it in that way. Again, the Spanish language’s usage of colors do not carry the same connotations as the English language. You can say negro, in an argument and still not be offensive. It takes particular circumstances, like adding mierda to the mix before it is generally taken as offensive.
“This partial truth completely destroyed his evidence when it was pointed out by the spanish language experts. It meant That liverpool and kenny dalglish put themselves on the line in a major way to defend someone, whose account of events didn’t stand a chance in front of a commission. Suarez should never have put them in that position. ”
I sincerely doubt that they were operating purely off Suarez’s word that the word was generally inoffensive, if nothing else they just had to ask the multiple native spanish speakers in the squad. Again, they do not believe Evra’s account of the events to be true, so off that basis they are right in thinking Suarez’s one comment was inoffensive.
“Suarez is a great player, but a bit of a lunatic, and a narky little sod on the pitch, and he would do anything to wind up an opponent. The likelihood is that he probably did say something to Evra, to wind him up without realizing how serious it was. If the first one wound evra up, he probably said it a couple of more times. (I don’t think he was racist, but that he would use racist language to wind someone up because he didn’t think it was that big a deal.) He did admit to commolli in spanish, and to kuyt in dutch that he said that he had kicked evra “because he was black.” ”
One, I can definitely see that version of events happening, and that is why I reserve judgement towards Evra. It could have gone either way, but the report was inconclusive in my eyes. I’d also like to quickly thank you for not calling Suarez a racist. What I don’t understand is judging a spanish word by english standards, it is by no means “racist language” in any country where spanish is the national language. The content of the language does not change simply because of a change in geography. Finally, when those two state Suarez said, “porque tu es negro” they are referring to the one instance where Suarez admits to using the word, where he claims the words were, “Por que, negro?”. Though they use this difference in statements and likely mistranslation to discredit Suarez, the difference is in reference to the 6th count of the word, where they accept Suarez’s statement and not Kuyt’s or Commolli’s.
“He would have gotten a four game ban, but it would have shown that liverpool were on top of things, and proved beyond all possible doubt that they were seriously committed to the fight against racism. There would have been a bit of a media storm over suarez, but it would have been over very quickly and liverpool as a club would have had their reputation enhanced. ”
Though I think their application of this rule, to the spanish language is inappropriate, I agree this was the best course of action for Liverpool. The fight against racism, does not exist in soccer. Equal employment laws are of course enforced, and racist antics are of course dealt with, but a sport cannot do anything to really combat racism. I think John Barnes has said it best on this point.
Good points Zach.
Re cultural understandings of different phrases, here’s John Sinnott of the BBC on Twitter last night explaining why we shouldn’t translate literally Tevez’s description of his treatment at the hands of Mancini as akin to “being treated like a dog”:
***Lost in translation MT @EzequielTrumper Tevez speaks version of Spanish slang used in BA poorest areas-phrase doesn’t translate easily mf***
Well I never…
“He never said it was only friendly, he said it was usually friendly (this has been backed up by multiple language experts, and native Spanish speakers) and that he meant it in that way.”
Ah, that they backed him up in saying that it was usually friendly doesn’t matter, because the Video evidence showed that they were having a row. they said that saying it in a row would be offensive. The point was that because There is ligher/darker discrimination everywhere, even in nigeria, and bringing someone’s colour into a row is offensive anywhere. It’s also how the actual offence is framed. Basically the offence he was charged with was using someone’s skin colour in a row.
That’s why a conviction doesn’t say that he is racist. it makes no presumptions about intent. the law is there to stop the behaviour. You can no more assume that suarez is guilty of racism any more than you can assume that he is a necrophiliac if he told some opponent that he dug up some opponents grandmother and satisfied himself in all the holes.
What a conviction does tell you is that suarez is a windup artist, who went a bit far. He might be a bit racist, in that he’s not afraid to use colour in an inappropriate way, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. but in using colour in this way, he’s left himself open to being called a racist.
This is why all the effort liverpool put into saying that luis suarez was not a racist before the trial was completely wasted. It had nothing to do with the case. No-one was saying he was a racist, and proving he wasn’t wasn’t going to help the case at all. The question isn’t “is luis suarez a racist?” it is “Is luis suarez a windup merchant who might have unwittingly have gone way too far with entirely the wrong guy?”
“I sincerely doubt that they were operating purely off Suarez’s word that the word was generally inoffensive, if nothing else they just had to ask the multiple native spanish speakers in the squad. Again, they do not believe Evra’s account of the events to be true, so off that basis they are right in thinking Suarez’s one comment was inoffensive.”
To be honest, that’s a very charitable assumption to make. Liverpool’s handling of this from beginning to end has been so completely hamfisted, and geared entirely towards suarez that I could well believe it. They didn’t hire independent spanish language experts, who might have told them the problem with suarez’s testimony. But also they didn’t realise the importance of his initial admission.
They didn’t realise that what suarez had told commolli and dalglish was an admission of guilt. They just acted as though suarez was completely innocent, without even pausing to consider that he might have done it. He’s an employee, not kenny dalglish’s son, you’re not supposed to unquestioningly believe and support him.
“What I don’t understand is judging a spanish word by english standards, it is by no means “racist language” in any country where spanish is the national language. The content of the language does not change simply because of a change in geography. Finally, when those two state Suarez said, “porque tu es negro” they are referring to the one instance where Suarez admits to using the word, where he claims the words were, “Por que, negro?”. Though they use this difference in statements and likely mistranslation to discredit Suarez, the difference is in reference to the 6th count of the word, where they accept Suarez’s statement and not Kuyt’s or Commolli’s.”
Ah, now….. you’re missing the point here. That Negro isn’t so bad a word in spanish isn’t the point. The point is that Suarez told commolli that he said he kicked evra “because he was black.” I’m afraid that language doesn’t get much more racist than that.
The second thing is that the told commolli in spanish, and he told kuyt in dutch. And they don’t sound remotely similar in dutch.
“Though I think their application of this rule, to the spanish language is inappropriate, I agree this was the best course of action for Liverpool. The fight against racism, does not exist in soccer. Equal employment laws are of course enforced, and racist antics are of course dealt with, but a sport cannot do anything to really combat racism. I think John Barnes has said it best on this point.”
I don’t think this is true at all. I think sport has massively changed people’s perceptions of colour. Without getting into a Your club my club spat, but Before liverpool signed john barnes, black players heard some very unpleasant things coming from the anfield crowd (just like a t a lot of other clubs.)
The signing of john barnes very quickly made that sort of behaviour a hell of a lot less acceptable at liverpool. Most people who say dodgy things aren’t really racist, and say them if that is the mood of the crowd. But if your best player is the black superman, then that tilts the mood of the crowd away from racism very quickly. If you’re abusing any black player, you were also abusing john barnes.
John barnes is massively underplaying his own role in the revolution in attitudes towards racism. It’s tricky to think that black players are inferior if john barnes is the best player in the league, and pele is the greatest player who had ever lived (at that point)
Black players used to occasionally hear racist abuse from man utd fans well into the eighties. But against stoke one fan started shouting racist abuse. He was told to shut up in no uncertain terms by the fans around him. He carried on, they reported him to the stewards and he now has a life ban and is awaiting prosecution. quite simply it’s what you should expect at a club where half of the senior players are black or mixed race. You racially abuse one black person, you’re abusing them all. That is the level of change that sport has brought about.
If there is anything that this case has made it clear, it is that it is unacceptable to bring someone’s colour into an argument. If john Terry is found guilty, and his career destroyed, it will send a powerful message to society that it is not on to scream “black f*cking C*nt” at people.
This issue is vastly bigger than liverpool and man utd, and way bigger than luis suarez.
Something else that is worth considering about the unseemly media scrum, is that if everyone is telling you that you are doing something wrong. It’s not always evidence of a massive media conspiracy against the club, maybe you should consider that your club is in the wrong, and everyone else is growing tired of pointing it out.
The idea that there is a massive media conspiracy to destroy kenny dalglish is insane. Before all of this nonsense, kenny dalglish was a very popular figure outside of liverpool, and even if he wasn’t particularly liked by man utd fans, he certainly would have been respected as a great player, and the manager of a fantastic team. who had done the trick with blackburn again. But he also would have had a huge amount of respect for his role in hillsborough.
(It’s worth pointing out that fans who sing about hilsborough are a small, moronic minority, who fail to realise that that could just as easily have been them, and that hilsborough was a tragedy for all matchgoing fans, but one that was felt the deepest by liverpool.)
The faces of football punditry on the BBC are mark lawrenson and alan hansen. jamie redknapp is a lead pundit on sky. Phil thompson is in soccer saturday. The sports editor of the times is a liverpool fan as a re a number of journalists there. There are a great deal of liverpool fans throughout the media. In Ireland Ray houghton and ronnie whelan are 3rd and 4th pundits on our version of motd, and our CL coverage. The point is that Liverpool have lots of friends in the media.
The problem is that liverpool’s handling of this whole affair was so cackhanded at every turn that it kept making the media storm worse. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not a conspiracy. This is what the media is like, and half your job in football is to stop issues turning into a media frenzy. And everything liverpool have done has made the frenzy worse, culminating in suarez changing his mind and not shaking evra’s hand.
The apologies are basically the first thing that liverpool have done to make their situation better in the whole sorry affair. Hopefully this will be the end of the whole affair.
The thing that you have to remember is that man utd want this thing to go away. Man utd don’t care about luis suarez. They don’t care that liverpool have a good player. liverpool are 19 points behind man utd. No-one tried to nobble fernando torres when he was scoring loads of winners in games between the clubs and generally shitting goals, while liverpool challenged for the title.
However, Man utd against liverpool is the biggest game in english football, and the game is watched by hundreds of millions of people all around the world. one of the big selling points of the premiership is that it is good clean violent fun. There being a racist allegation as part of the mix is bad for business, because it tarnishes a big game. It basically gets in the way of making money, and that is all that the man utd hierarchy care about.
“Ah, that they backed him up in saying that it was usually friendly doesn’t matter, because the Video evidence showed that they were having a row. they said that saying it in a row would be offensive. The point was that because There is ligher/darker discrimination everywhere, even in nigeria, and bringing someone’s colour into a row is offensive anywhere. It’s also how the actual offence is framed. Basically the offence he was charged with was using someone’s skin colour in a row.
That’s why a conviction doesn’t say that he is racist. it makes no presumptions about intent. the law is there to stop the behaviour. You can no more assume that suarez is guilty of racism any more than you can assume that he is a necrophiliac if he told some opponent that he dug up some opponents grandmother and satisfied himself in all the holes. ”
You are missing the point, if indeed they were arguing, the usage of negro in an argument is NOT always racist. It is just an informal way of identifying a person. The hispanic attitude towards race is completely different than our own, what you have said regarding mentioning skin color during an argument as always being offensive, everywhere, is false. This is a barrier almost entirely presented by the english language. The rule set down by the FA on mentioning skin color is based upon English assumptions, mentioning color in spanish is not always offensive. This rule would be inappropiate in a spanish speaking country. The fact is all the video shows is a grinning Suarez running rings around an increasingly frustrated Evra, who eventually begins acting angrily speaking to Suarez, who reacts with indignation and at least one clear moment supplication. Really, if you are going to talk about video, watch the whole game over. I certainly do not hope they stopped this non-racist behavior. Free use of the spanish language, should be allowed native spanish speakers.
“To be honest, that’s a very charitable assumption to make.”
Lol, maybe it is.
“Ah, now….. you’re missing the point here. That Negro isn’t so bad a word in spanish isn’t the point. The point is that Suarez told commolli that he said he kicked evra “because he was black.” I’m afraid that language doesn’t get much more racist than that. ”
The main point was that Commolli and Kuyt in all likelihood butchered the translation/recollection, just as Evra did. Everything, that anyone says they heard Suarez, has been presented in piss-poor spanish. Again, Suarez at this time is telling him that he said, “Por que, negro?”, and they ended up charging him on Suarez’s own statement. Not Commolli’s in this instance.
“If john Terry is found guilty, and his career destroyed, it will send a powerful message to society that it is not on to scream “black f*cking C*nt” at people. ”
Here is where we differ. Yet they will still think it and that is the true problem. People absolutely do not take their values from the government, except maybe through education. Punishing John Terry is not a lesson to anyone except Terry, and I have no doubt if that is indeed what he said, that he will go on thinking it. As will every other racist. As I said earlier, John Barnes has said it best, people need to be taught what race really is and from that base we can really address racism. Honestly, I would rather the racists be vocal, so we can publicly address what they say point by point and it would also give us a better idea of just how prevalent racism is. I want to make this clear, I do not think it is ok for anyone to suffer racist abuse, I just think it is moral issue and not a legal one.
It is not something the law can take care of down to its very core, it can limit the superficial signs and symptoms, it takes proper education to truly attack racism.
Yes, the conspiracy theories are very ridiculous. But sometimes it feels good to be up against the world, masochists that we are ; ).
Also, it sounds like I’m making Suarez out to be an angel in my second paragraph. This is not the case, I do not doubt that words were exchanged, and maybe negro was used. But Suarez is not hostile, and in fact seems a bit confused by what is going on for most of the incident, though he is clearly upset by the end of it. Most of the video evidence, makes no case for either side.
You are kidding about the media thing right?! No editor or sports channel in their right mind would allow an article or a pundit to have a full blown rant defending Suarez. That doesnt sell to the masses. Plus he was found ‘guilty’. It doesnt matter what ex Liverpool players are pundits/column writers they would be fired. Alan Hanson was nearly hung by his bollocks for saying the word coloured for Christ sake. They might have small bits here and there with a bit of defence but I think a lot of them would like to keep their jobs. I dont think the media have an agenda per say I think they just write to sell. Regardless of whats right of wrong. Some though have their lips firmly planted on Alex Fergusons bum cheeks. This mass hysterical outrage is ridiculous though. I think one paper liked Suarez to some south american mass murdering dictator, its almost hilarious! Thats what John Barnes is trying to say. Everybody is climbing over themselves to be the most ‘morally outraged’ but nobody is actually educating or being educated as to what racism and race really is.
Everyday of Torres’ Liverpool career he was a diving cheat. Thats according the gospel Ferguson. Torres was a threat and it was said about him that he dived and cheated. Never mind the fact that his legs were kicked off him. He was a threat. And therefore a cheat. Never hear that about him now though do we? Surprise, surprise. Liverpool might not be a threat to united by winning the league but they cam can certainly dampen their chances by taking 6 points off them. And everyone knows how much Fergie hates to lose against Liverpool. So he does come out and say things if he feels threatened. Hes already started with the snide comments against Tevez. A player who would definitely destroy uniteds title bid should he kiss and make up with Mancini. Ferguson is very good at mind games. A lot people thats made up but its true.
Regarding the whole case ive pretty said all I want to say on it. Nobody is going to change their opinion. But im just glad I set my opinion by what I read in the report and not on the back pages. Which is why Liverpool fans feel hard done by too. They have spent the last 4 months arguing against people who formed their opinion from the brain of Oliver Holy and co instead of actually reading the report. And thats unfair.
i
Sorry it seems their are one or two words missing. And I don’t know what that random I is about. Its very annoying trying to write comments on the phone. Anyway im sure you’ll get the gist of it.
***”Evra did understand the English meaning of the incident to contain ‘n**ger’, but it’s wrong to say he retracted anything, he only came to understand it’s meaning more accurately. To use the word ‘retract’ suggests he changed his account of the actual words used in the incident.”***
With respect, the “came to understand it’s meaning more accurately” is significantly more relevant than whether “retract” should be replaced by “amend” or “qualify” or anything else. Reason being, the “came to understand its meaning more accurately” has the effect of massively altering the magnitude of the alleged crime. What was once “n**ger” subseqiently becomes “black”. Innocent mistranslation by Evra or otherwise, Suarez, Dalglish and Commolli left Mariner’s room under no illusion that the nature of the allegation against Suarez was that he’d called Evra a “n**ger” multiple times. It’s not difficult to imagine the level of consternation such an accusation would have generated and it helps explain, I believe, why LFC did not at that stage make any attempt at rapprochement.
Now, suppose Evra had transalted “negro” as he should have done and relayed this to Mariner. Given Suarez is openly admitting to using “negro/black” it’s entirely possible that in such a scenario a discussion could have ensued there and then as to meaning and intent behind Suarez’s use of the word. After all, in such a counter-factual there is no longer a dispute about what is being said, only the motivation and meaning. I’m not claiming this would necessarily have brought this episode to a swift conclusion, but the chances of some form of rapprochement – either in Mariner’s room or later – are infinitely greater.
What has never been made clear is precisely at what point Evra came to understand that he had mistranslated “negro”, and further when he or his legal team communicated this LFC so they were aware of the nature of the charge against their player. I would really like to know the answers to those questions. Again, depending on the answers, they could go at least some way to explaining why positons remained as entrenched as they did.
***”Even though you think the commission doesn’t have enough evidence to prove the charge, despite the inconsistent mess that is Suarez’s statements, you do believe that Evra not aiming to get Suarez prosecuted in a criminal court is somehow “damning evidence” against Evra. That is a good example of using differing standards.”***
Fair enough, as it happens. It’s not really “damning evidence” if I think about it. I do still query why he wouldn’t go down the criminal route in such circumstances, but then I’ve never been a victim of racial abuse so I’m not going to presume how I would react. I will say, however, that on balance I think I’d prefer that matters such as these WERE handled within our criminal justice system rather than by an FA-appointed regulatroy body. The stakes are just too high. Again, bearing in mind Evra’s mistranslation and the seriousness of the accusation against Suarez, I’m struggling to understand why the FA did not seek to persuade Evra to contact the police. How bad does an accusation of racism have to be (he called me a n**ger 10 times) before it warrants police involvement?
***”And you’re right, it is still the balance of probabilities used, but it being flexible means they have to be satisfied to a greater degree and require more cogent evidence.”***
The second bit is right (“more cogent evidence”) but not the first. The standard of proof is unaltered: the required degree of satisfaction is that they believe it is “probable” the offence was committed as alleged. No more than that.
***”So if it is 51%, it being flexible means they are more satisfied it is that.”***
Still no but not a flat “no”. They need be no more satisifed than they are for non-serious offences; they demand a greater burden of evidence, but that evidence need only take them to 51%. I think you’re saying that as a result of the greater burden of evidence an individual arbiter may subjectively conclude that s/he is happier and therefore more “satisfied” that a 51% probability is safer in such cases, but the key point is that the probability still need only be 51%.
***”Which of course makes the use of % misleading and pointless. All this is important to make clear if you do though, because many supporters actually state the balance of probabilities shouldn’t be used for such a serious offence without realising the seriousness of it is factored in.”***
You may have misunderstood my intention here. There are many people screaming Suarez’s guilt from the rooftops as if this verdict came via Mount Sinai. You don’t have to be a LFC supporter to conceded that the evidence against Suarez is hardly conclusive and there is at least some room for doubt, doubt that should give all but the most vehement critics of LFC room to consider the merest possibility that they might, just might be smearing an innocent man, This is where the percentages do become important because too many people simply don’t know that this is one that could have gone either way. As I said in another thread, the consensus in the media before the judgment was that the FA had its work cut out proving a claim without any corroborating video or independent witness testimony. Ludicrously, LFC didn’t even appoint a barrister to their team so convinced they were of success.
All the above is long way of saying that it simply cannot be right to hand down a judgment that carries the risk of, potentially, finishing a player’s career on the basis s/he is “probably” guilty as charged. It’s simply not good enough. The FA has shown willing to proceed with a case against a player where there is no corroborating video evidence or independent witness testimony. Despite all protestations to the contrary, Suarez-Evra was, essentially, about one player’s word against another. That genie is out of a the bottle and the FA will now find it impossible to resist calls for action in similar word-against-word cases; and the accused in any future case will be 51% probability away from having a character and career besmirched forever.
ManU fan. Chelsea fans, Everton fans…be careful what you wish for.
How exactly does how or when Evra came to understand the meaning of ’negro’ more accurately massively alter the ultimate magnitude of the alleged crime? The alleged words used would be identical and Evra’s understanding still wouldn’t be the one used by the commission. Are you just saying that if Evra understood that the word didn’t mean n**ger before he left Anfield he would have been less likely to complain to the FA?
I did overuse the word ‘satisfied’ But we both understand that even though they have to be equally “satisfied” that it is was more likely to have occured than not, they require more cogent evidence. My point was that, particularly in the minds of many supporters, 51% not realising they factor in the seriousness of the offence, is not equal to 51% when realising they do. Like the same proportion slice but of different size cakes. But, of course, it still need be no higher than 51%, but reading the report most reasonable people would consider it to be far higher than that. Furthermore it would be usual that such a case used the criminal standard of proof when they don’t have criminal sanctions.
And I’d argue it’s not the findings of the FA that have caused Suarez’s character and career to be besmirched, it’s overwhelmingly his and Liverpool’s attitude and handling of such a high profile incident. But what standard of proof do Liverpool supports require to besmirch the character of Patrice Evra?
On the video evidence, it was highly consistent with Evra‘s account and undermined Suarez‘s. And finally, on Evra not going to the police; I think it would have been extraordinary if he’d chosen to unilaterally or been advised to do so. If he had, those advising him would certainly be having their agendas questioned vehemently and Evra would be called a hysterical bitch for doing so on his own back. But not only would they need to prove Suarez said something racially abusive beyond a reasonable doubt, unlike the FA, in a criminal court they would also need to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt.
El capitán de la selección de Uruguay, Diego Lugano, manifestó su apoyo a Suárez a través del programa televisivo Conectados de Canal 10. La “Tota” fue duro con los ingleses por cómo se trató el tema.
“Luis ha pasado por unos meses que no se merecía, no tiene nada que ver, todos los que estamos en el fútbol sabemos que es un circo muy grande”
Además agregó: “Hay que tener en cuenta que Inglaterra es un país históricamente colonial y el racismo es algo sumamente delicado, pero sabemos que no tiene nada que ver con la relación entre Luis y este jugador del Manchester. Es una discusión del fútbol que mucho moralista falso e hipócrita aprovechó para una lección y Luisito en este caso es el único inocente”.
Lugano indicó que tanto él como todos los compañeros de la selección están con Suárez nuevamente tras lo ocurrido el pasado fin de semana: “Para hacer lo que hizo Luis el sábado hay que tener huevo. El siguió sus convicciones. Vivimos en democracia y si no querés saludar a alguien no lo saludás. Mucho menos a una persona que te hizo pasar tan malos momentos”.
ED: Which according to Google translate (admittedly not the best) is:
The captain of Uruguay, Diego Lugano, Suarez expressed support through the online TV show of Channel 10. The “Tota” was hard at how the British treated the subject.
“Luis has gone through a few months she did not deserve, it has nothing to do, all of us in football know it’s a big circus”
He added: “We must bear in mind that England is a country historically colonial and racism is very delicate, but we know that has nothing to do with the relationship between Louis and the player of Manchester. This is a discussion of football that much false and hypocritical moralist advantage for a lesson and Luisito in this case is the only innocent. ”
Lugano said that he and all the team mates are with Suarez again after what happened last weekend: “To do what he did Luis on Saturday must have egg. He followed his convictions. We live in a democracy and if you do not want to greet someone does not greet. Much less a person that made you go so bad now. “