Have just speed read through this document, my stance is that my club has been made to look fairly foolhardy in standing squarely behind Suarez before the report was published. For his evidence to be condemn as "unreliable" and "inconsistent" is very damning and doesn't not just make him look bad, but the judgement within the club looks questionable unless they can repudiate Evra's claims as they have said all along.
Attached is the full report for you to peruse and respond too:
Independent Regulatory Commission release written reasons for Luis Suarez case
I am deeply hurt by the stance of our club by not waiting for the report before totally backing Suarez.
ReplyDeleteIt now looks naive to have backed Suarez without judging the findings first - the club has now made the following official statement:-
The club can confirm that they received the written reasons from the Regulatory Commission at short notice last night on the evening of the game against Newcastle United.
The player, the Club and our legal advisors will now take the necessary amount of time to read, digest and properly consider the contents of the 115 page judgement and will make no further comment at present.
I would like my club to after looking through the facts - apologise, accept the report and accept the 8 match ban because it is a major embarrasment to us as fans and as a club.
Also get Suarez to do a public press conference and apologise for his naivety and promise not to act in such a manner again.
He should also offer his wages to the Kick Racism out of Football campaign.
The club can't support Suarez totally on this at all !!
I heard a synopsis of it on skysports and I agree that Liverpool Football club should have waited for the report before taking a stand,
ReplyDeletenow they need to take a step back and admit their mistake.
Bala
I think para 254 exposes the “cultural differences” read his interview with the FA on 2 November,may be we all need to step back..
ReplyDeleteSitting on the train going to work, I was suddenly struck by the fact that neither Luis Suarez or Liverpool Football Club have seen fit to offer an apology, which to my eyes is a disgrace.
ReplyDeleteIf Suarez had said yesterday something like the following 'as I have said in my country the word negro is seen as a term of endearment, but I now understand that it has a total different meaning and connotation in the UK and I can only apologise.' While it can not have totally healed the damage already done, it may have gone some way in helping to ease the situation, but to not say anything and to continue to stress by implication that the Independent Commission were in League with the FA is abysmal to say the say the least and shows a complete lack of understanding and sensibility with the situation.
The following from Blackburn's Jason Roberts, Natasha Berry (The Voice Newspaper) and the Daily Mirror's Darren Lewis supports the lack of awareness and feeling from LFC which is being felt by many supporters and public alike:
Luis Suarez defence damages Liverpool reputation - Jason Roberts
ReplyDelete4 January 2012
By Simon Austin
BBC Sport
Liverpool risk damaging reputation - Roberts
Liverpool could damage their reputation if they continue to insist Luis Suarez is not guilty of racist abuse, says Blackburn striker Jason Roberts.
Suarez was banned for eight games for racially abusing Patrice Evra.
Liverpool decided not to appeal against the ban but issued a strongly-worded statement defending the player.
Roberts said: "Liverpool's stance of saying he's done nothing wrong goes against the spirit of our league. When you read the report, it's quite ugly."
An independent Football Association commission ruled that Suarez, 24, had racially abused Evra during a 1-1 draw between Liverpool and Manchester United in October.
This is something that has to be told to everyone - it's not tolerated, especially in our leagues
Jason Roberts
The commission's report stated that the Uruguayan striker had used the term "negro" seven times in around two minutes and criticised him for providing "unreliable" and "inconsistent" evidence at the hearing.
Liverpool decided not to appeal against Suarez's ban, but issued a statement saying it was their "strongly held conviction... that the Football Association and the panel it selected constructed a highly subjective case... based on an accusation that was ultimately unsubstantiated".
Roberts, who has campaigned for Kick It Out, told BBC Sport: "Liverpool must think long and hard about how they are perceiving this.
"They are a proud club with lots of fans of different cultures and nationalities and it's important to think about how they would feel about being treated in the same way.
"Knowing people are from different nationalities and have different cultures is an important part of building your brand. You also have to know that players certainly don't accept being spoken to in that way."
Suarez and Liverpool claimed "negro" was a commonly used term in the striker's homeland of Uruguay and that it was often used affectionately there.
But Roberts, who received an MBE in 2010 for his services to sport in Grenada, added: "To use those words in that tone and context is certainly not acceptable in our leagues.
"It's not good enough to say, 'It's OK where I come from, so we do it here'. That's not the way we judge our society or the Premier League. They were ugly scenes and I'm worried that kids would have seen this.
"This is something that has to be told to everyone - it's not tolerated, especially in our leagues, as diverse as they are."
Cont
Jason Roberts continued
ReplyDeleteRoberts, 33, said foreign players needed to be better educated about what was and was not acceptable in England.
He added: "He [Suarez] should have been educated, that's certainly something that's come out of this.
"If you're going to come and play in the Premier League and live in our society, it's important that you understand the rules we abide by.
"Anyone who understands the culture here knows you wouldn't use those words, certainly not in the context in which they were used."
Roberts also said he was concerned that Evra had been forgotten during the whole affair.
"I'm more worried about how Patrice Evra has felt about the whole thing," he said.
"Not enough people have spoken about him and the issues he went through. Yes, he said some things back to Suarez and there was an argument, but he would have felt incensed by what was said and rightly so."
Liverpool have shown no humility, understanding or awareness
Written by Natasha Henry
04/01/2012 01:44 PM
AFTER THE release of the 115-page document covering every inch of the Independent Commission's investigation, Liverpool Football Club have decided to accept Luiz Suarez' eight-game ban which commenced on Tuesday night.
However, they still allude to the fact that Suarez was being treated unfairly by the FA, prior to the hearing. If this were true, why did they not use their veto to remove any panel member they didn't feel comfortable with? Also, it is not the FA's fault that Suarez' evidence was deemed inconsistent.
Yesterday's statement from both the club and the player, has shown that they are still not willing to take any responsibility; from the initial event to the ensuing furore. If Liverpool want to continue to spout off about cultural differences then surely they should be getting their player(s) involved with one of the many important football campaigns such as Kick It Out and Show Racism the Red Card. They need to ensure that the player has a better understanding of why he was punished and the differences between what is acceptable.
I understand there are variations in each language, but having lived in Spain, I can honestly say that no one ever called me a 'negro' in a friendly or playful manner. The only time I heard it, it was said in an aggressive and deliberately offensive manner to myself or other members of my family.
Now while I never found this acceptable, I understood I was in a different country and that things, particularly language, are extremely different. Should the individual alter to the country they reside in, or should it be the other way around?
And for me, this is the point that Liverpool FC are missing. While they are blaming everyone else, maybe they are ignoring the fact that they should have been the ones to educate their player regarding these so called cultural differences, and then this unfortunate incident may never have happened in the first place.
Posted on: 04/01/2012 01:44 PM
Why Suarez must now do the decent thing and say sorry
ReplyDeleteBy Darren Lewis
Published 14:15 04/01/12
So much has already been said about the Suarez-Evra case.
So I'll just add a couple of things.
It is fascinating that, in a week when we have reached the conclusion of a high-profile court case following a man's death because of the colour of his skin, football fans - and one of the country's highest profile clubs - are still defending a man found guilty of using a racially offensive term.
As a black man I can tell you this: There is no context in which any term referring to the colour of my skin during an argument can be termed as anything other than racist.
Why Suarez must now do the decent thing and say sorry
By Darren Lewis
Published 14:15 04/01/12
..
So much has already been said about the Suarez-Evra case.
So I'll just add a couple of things.
It is fascinating that, in a week when we have reached the conclusion of a high-profile court case following a man's death because of the colour of his skin, football fans - and one of the country's highest profile clubs - are still defending a man found guilty of using a racially offensive term.
As a black man I can tell you this: There is no context in which any term referring to the colour of my skin during an argument can be termed as anything other than racist.
That might be hard for Liverpool fans to accept but it is a fact.
Suarez admitted using the word 'negro' to Patrice Evra in his own evidence to the FA's three-man independent commission.
Having seen friends attacked for being black, having been racially abused myself, and even having been on the end of the attempts to use racist terms in an apparently affectionate, friendly way, I don't need anybody to tell me what does and does not constitute racism.
Many Liverpool fans have been in touch with me, outraged, to complain about the Daily Mirror's infamous 'Racist' back page.
And yet there has been a spectacular irony about the way some of them, trying to defend Suarez against the charge, have themselves directed racist language of the most disgraceful kind at other pundits and journalists.
Some fans have fumed to me that they would be unfollowing me and my newspaper on Twitter. As if some sort of Twitter boycott would have anywhere near the same significance as basic human decency.
This is way bigger than all of that nonsense.
Liverpool are a great club with good people, good administrators and many, many good fans. But they have got it wrong on this occasion from start to finish.
They demanded the written reasons after the guilty verdict was announced last month but have gone on to dismiss those, maintaining they are right and the rest of world was wrong.
Continued
Darren Lewis Continued:
ReplyDeleteEven then, in their incendiary latest statement they claim to be a "leader on taking a progressive stance on race issues". But privately the anti-racism groups in this country that I have spoken to are horrified at the Reds' intransigence on Suarez.
The wearing of those infamous T-shirts was at best an open defiance of our football authorities and at worst a massive blow - from a club with worldwide renown - for the fight to kick racism out of football.
The use of that word 'Racist' on the back page of the Mirror indicated that an independent three-man panel had listened to all the evidence and ruled that the words used by Suarez were racially offensive.
And yet Liverpool have accused the FA of a witch-hunt and appear to be questioning the independence and the honesty of a respected QC with their most recent statement.
The FA have had little if anything to do with the judgment, acting on this occasion as the messenger once said judgment had been reached.
The decision of the independent panel to use their discretion to give eight-matches shows that we in this country have set a benchmark in the fight against racism.
It shows that while there would have been a denial, or even a shameful acceptance of racism from the people in charge years ago, the will is now there to show zero tolerance - whatever the ability or the status of the player, or club, concerned.
It is understandable that Liverpool's instinctive stance at the start of this row would have been to back their man. Particularly one so talented and valuable to them as Suarez is in comparison to his fellow (inferior) strikers.
But somewhere along the line they have made it about them and now the image of the club is taking a battering.
That could yet change if Suarez, who insisted in November that either he or Evra would have to apologise if the ruling went against them, did the decent thing and said sorry.
Certainly relations between Liverpool and Manchester United need to be repaired ahead of his potential return game in early February.
In the meantime the credibility of the people who run our game remains intact on this issue.
Liverpool continue digging.
I wholeheartedly agree with Lord Ousley who is also a former chair of what was the Commission for Racial Equality and was instrumental in securing improvements in public services in this country. This followed the Mcpherson report into institutional racism following the death of Stephen Lawrence. I wonder whether Mcpherson is able to do a report on LFC following their disgraceful handling of this matter? Happy new year to all.
ReplyDeleteKenny has to take a lot of blame for this as well. All this defending him business is ruining the reputation of the club. Liverpool are the
ReplyDeletefirst club to ever feel victimised if something don't go there way, always wanting justice something or other. Suarez was blatantly racist
and was found just ably guilty of his actions. The fact the club have dirties their laundry in public and constantly tried to get away with it
shows a lack or respect to what is a globally diverse sport. I saw a picture the other day when Liverpool embarrassingly wore team Suarez
T-shirts and in the background was a advertising board that said 'Kick Racism out of Football'.....quite simply a joke!!
Happy New Year to you all
ReplyDeleteDon’t care how good of a player Suarez is we do not need a racist in our team. Kenny needs to get rid off him before the transfer window closes regardless of what’s on his contract.I have worked in many football stadiums and one of the ‘Ground Rules to fans is that ‘racist behaviour will not be tolerated’, so what gives a player on the payroll the right. Suarez is racist and no one should make excuses for him, don’t care who you are.
Valerie
Valerie – I totally agree about Suarez – I don’t give a damn how good a player he is. Fix up, admit the error of your ways, get some training and apologise properly. Alternatively – off you go!
ReplyDeleteIt was bad enough for them not to have waited until after the report to do a considered and proper response, but the fact they've stood by Suarez come what may has held the club up to ridicule and to top it all to release that response to the statement on the day that two people (and I use that description advisably) were convicted of Stephen Lawrence's murder show's a lack of awareness, sensibility and feeling towards the whole issue of racism.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the point of issuing a general apology... it shows no class, no courage and no understanding. They have obviously briefed Dalglish to the hilt and for him to just repeat the standard mantra that we are behind him and we will stand by him is a utter nonsense. I was just about to hit the publish button when a friend of mine, a WBA supporter, sent the link below with no message.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/jan/05/kenny-dalglish-luis-suarez-judgment
What's he mean 'I will never say on a pitch in England again' ..... you don't bloody say it anywhere in the world!!!!!
ReplyDeletea press conference is needed from LFC. The ball is in our end! What's right to say and wrong, his now plaing in England, his come to come clean.
ReplyDeleteRedAlert
So much damage has already been done. LFC are pathetic!
ReplyDeleteWhat we needed during this was proper leadership from the top of the club and we failed abysmally. Steven Gerrard's comments in his programme notes for the home game against Stoke City in which he spoke about the incident regarding Tom Adeyami, particularly the final sentence, is what we would expect to hear from senior officials at the club!
Delete..."Such incidents have no place in society, in football or at LFC. As a football club we have always supported anti-racism initiatives and our fans are well known for their sporting nature and good humour. Any other type of behaviour will not be tolerated."
Now imagine if a similar statement had been made after the report following the Suarez/Evra incident by the Chairman or Chief Executive and followed with something along the lines of "we will be working with Suarez and ALL LFC employees both now and in the future to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again under any circumstance".
It was difficult to sit in The Main Stand with Stoke fans shouting 'You're just s stand full of racist' While you'll always have people jumping on the back of something like this to plunge the knife into an open wound, it's festered because of the tactless way in which we dealt with the issue and to some aspects are still not dealing with it.
I would suppose that we must have a Diversty or Community Officer, well now is the time he or she should start earning their corn instead of just drafting press releases.
A Liverpool fan said that he felt quite encouraged by the fans reaction to the Stoke City chants. In respons LFC fans sang "we're not racists, we just hate all Mancs!" There's more to be done to convince me that as a club we are not free from inherent biases. As my nephew said to me yesterday, "where are the black players?" He also implied that our success is dependent on having a more diverse pool of players, like at Man u, city, Chelsea and all the other top clubs.
DeleteI think Dalglish has been guilty of taking poor advice and bad handling of a very sensitive issue, a racist? No but niaive without doubt.