No-one can condone racism in any walk of life, even football, which often likes to think of itself as being above the law on occasion. If Luis Suarez was guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra he deserves everything he gets in the way of a ban and/or fine. Evra has admitted to insulting Suarez in Spanish just before the incident, although the Uruguayan told the FA he never heard it."
I have one worry about the whole incident and that is the fact that the only person who heard the comment, and it was apparently said ten times, was Patrice Evra. This despite the fact that there were other players around the incident. It then boils down to Evra's word against Suarez's word, and the FA chose to believe Evra. Why or how was the evidence in favour of a judgement against Suarez? As a PR exercise this is a potential disaster for the Football Association, as some members of the footballing community will feel aggrieved at the outcome since it appears that nothing has been proven.
Would the same judgement have been made had Suarez reported Evra for racist comments?
I get the impression that whatever the actual story, and let's face it the only people who really know what went on are Suarez and Evra, the FA were going to "send out a message" to deter other players from making the same error in judgement.
I thought Mario Balotelli made a poignant/amusing remark on twitter along the lines of "The FA believe Evra with no evidence whatsoever; the entire Manchester United squad racially abused me then - haha".
I await with interest the conclusion of the police enquiry into the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand case (the police are involved because it was reported by a member of the crowd), where there is TV evidence incriminating Terry, the current England captain.
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