Last week Suarez was charged by the FA for using “insulting words in reference to Manchester United defender Patrice Evra's colour” and was given an 8 match ban alongside a £40,000 fine.
This has caused people to react in two different ways. Many people are glad he’s been given such a severe ban as there really is no place for it in society let alone football. But there have been certain sections who’ve reacted in support of Suarez, obviously the majority of them are Liverpool fans.
Because that seems to be how racism in football works these days. It’s the scourge of the Earth and players should be severely punished for being racist in their actions. Unless of course, they play for your team, in which case it’s completely acceptable.
Liverpool fans are backing Suarez to the hilt complaining that Patrice Evra is a horrible person (which of course makes racism fine) and getting #ISupportLuizSuarez to the top of the trends on Twitter, all be it most of the tweets containing the hashtag are condemning the idiocy of it.
Chelsea fans are even worse. To show support for their captain, John Terry, during the match against Spurs at White Hart Lane they sang ‘he’ll say what he wants’. Terrible.
Chelsea’s official stance is to support Terry which at this stage is all they can do really. In the end, he is innocent until proven guilty. However if he gets away with it there will rightly be a massive uproar.
In a statement Terry said he’d fight “tooth and nail” to clear his name and went on to say:
I have never aimed a racist remark at anyone and count people from all races and creeds among my closest friends.
I really don’t know how he can say that when there is clear video evidence showing him shouting racist abuse at QPR’s Anton Ferdinand. If he isn’t found guilty I will be absolutely flabbergasted. Maybe if he is found innocent the news networks will be able to show the footage of him shouting at Ferdinand without blurring his mouth. Yeah right.
Liverpool Football Club’s stance has also been incredibly poor. They are supporting Suarez but instead of uniting together against racism, they turned out in the warm-up for the Wigan game all wearing white shirts with a picture of Luis Suarez on the front and the number 7 on the back.
Embarrassing.
Surely the best way to unite together in support of Suarez would be for all players to come out for the warm-up wearing the ‘Kick It Out’ shirts. This would display that they are all against racism, including the charged Suarez. What did they show instead? Well you can read anything into it really. Was it in support of racism? I have no idea. A PR disaster.
And speaking of disasters, where does this leave the FA and Fabio Capello. He’s already taken the armband from John Terry once, now he’s going to have to do it again. It’s so humiliating as an Englishman to see John Terry captaining your nation, it’ll be worse now as Capello is forced to remove the armband again like a disappointed father filled with regret.
The FA has no choice but to strip him of it considering the massive anti-racism campaigns they have done over the decades. It would completely belittle all their efforts and make all their messages meaningless should they let him stay on as skipper.
I can sympathise with Suarez a little, he said something in the heat of the moment that is culturally acceptable in his native Uruguay (even though he hasn’t played there in years). I don’t personally think he’s a racist person, he just said something racist. The ban is right, it states that the player has said something racist and is therefore being punished accordingly. It doesn’t state that he is a racist. Pay the penalty, change your ways and move on.
The worst thing about the Suarez case of course is that next time Manchester United play at Anfield, Patrice Evra will have to be left out. There is no way he can be allowed to play as I can guarantee that if he does he will be racially abused by some sections of the crowd. That’s not to say anything about Liverpool fans, it’d happen anywhere; if it were a Manchester United player who racially abused a Liverpool player then the same would happen to the victim if they played at Old Trafford. There are some horrible shadows in football.
As for John Terry I have much less sympathy for him. He aggressively and vindictively abused Anton Ferdinand and although it was in the heat of the moment he had plenty of time to put himself in check and he didn’t.
As the Chelsea fans say: ‘he’ll say what he wants’. Well isn’t it about time we put a stop to that?
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