I can't be the only person who found the solidarity among the Liverpool players last night at Wigan a little distasteful. Okay it's not on the same lines as going to a mates stag do in France and finding out it's a Nazi fancy dress do but it still seemed to display a complete lack of respect for the decision to find Luis Suarez guilty of racist language.
Putting to one side the case for and against Suarez two things have come out of this mess that I find quite staggering. Firstly the complete ignorance of Kenny Dalglish and Liverpool FC in understanding public opinion on something as social unacceptable as racist language and secondly why are football clubs so seemingly bereft of any pastoral care? Would you not think that in the 21st Century a player coming into England from another country and culture, excusing for a minute Suarez played in Holland, would be given some sort of education by his club? Whether it's drug tests, drink driving or common assault there seems to be something severely lacking among our football clubs when it comes to looking after young men who have a lot of money and time on their hands.
A lot of reaction to the Evra-Suarez incident has revolved around the fact that there weren't any other players closer enough to actually hear what was said and yes you could find that situation uneasy and yet there are many cases where a case in a criminal court will be based on the evidence of one person against another, in rape trials for instance. Watching the match at the time it was clear that Suarez was trying to wind Evra up, that in itself is not unusual in professional sport but we didn't see anything during the match to indicate anything out of the ordinary. Now Suarez has been charged and Liverpool are going to appeal, they have launched a robust defence although the 'he can't be racist because he is mixed race' schtick does seem to indicate yet another level of ignorance by the football club, the colour of your skin does not preclude you from behaving in a racist manner or do Liverpool actually believe that only white people can be racist?
6 comments:
It is unbelievable. There are others trying to soften Saurez's "offence" too**. If I knew what he said I could tell you what I thought but as I haven't a clue all I did think was that 8 matches is very high and perhaps this is the revenge for the Falkland Island "sanctions" this week 'instigated' by Uruguay (yeah, right)
** the difference in the reporting of the Saurez and Terry stories is amazing.
I
:-)
I agree 100% on the issue of one person's word against another etc and, as you rightly point out, it makes you think about many rape cases.
As for player solidarity, I think a lot of players are not exactly "bright" and I can imagine that no-one in the dressing room will want to be a dissenting voice.
It will be very interesting to see what happens in the John Terry case now that F.A. seem to have set precedent.
Just to add, Liverpool seem to have bought in the "I can talk about racism cavalry":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-16309990
"From a cultural point of view, [Suarez] has been backed by people from Uruguay saying the word he used is not deemed as a racist term."
This sounds like the word 'negro' was involved but it still depends what he said and how he said it.
JT was booed everytime he touched the ball last night, I know it's quite common to boo England's 2010 World Cup squad but it was noticeable that Ashley Cole doesn't get the same treatment.
I agree Shy about the FA, Liverpool can now drag this out by appeal but the CPS are involved in the JT case and that makes it a whole lot different.
Span I think that is exactly the point here, what did he say, what did he mean? Surely you can't go up to a stranger in a Latin American country and refer to him as 'a little black man' or can you? Try doing that to a stranger in Europe or USA and calling him the 'n' word if you are white.
Actually you can, that's what I meant about "how" he said it which is something I guess we'll never know.
Negro, Negrita, Moreno, Morena, Flaco, Gordo, Renco, Tuerto, China (pronounced Cheeena) are all people I know! I'm sure there's a load more if I think about it.
BUT, especially to those you don't know that well, it can still be said in derogatory way (which in this case you can bet it was)
Good point. I used to have a client who called me Curly (a common enough term of affection for a baldy) and one of my staff said one day, "you don't have to take that," to which I replied, "I've lnown him for nearly twemty years, it's a term of affection."
Don't know if you saw Frank De Boers comment after the incident in Amsterdam this week but I think he displayed a little insensitivity when he said he could understand the actions of the AZ keeper because of his South American temper.
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