Sir Alex Ferguson, the esteemed manager of Manchester United, has broken his silence on the racism saga engulfing Liverpool Football Club and his own club. The two players involved, Luis Suarez of Uruguay and Liverpool and Patrice Evra of France and Manchester United, had up until now also kept a reserved silence, deciding to leave the entire affair in the hands of the British football regulatory authorities, the FA. On Wednesday it was announced that the Liverpool starlet would be banned for a period of 8 matches, pending an appeal.
Sir Alex Ferguson today called the decision just and right. He called it ‘the right decision’. He also stressed that Liverpool, and their fans, ought to just accept the ban and move on with it.
Luis Suarez, who has a black grandfather, admitted calling Patrice Evra something that could be construed as racist in England but the Uruguayan insisted that he is not a racist and that the term implies something entirely different in his own language, culture and country. Not withstanding, as many have stated, that does not mean he is exempt from the law. If theft is permitted in one country is not to say that a native of that country ought to be allowed to commit theft in another country, where it is unlawful, merely because it is the individuals custom, or at least within his rights, to thieve in his own. All things considered, though, as Liverpool themselves have attested, these are not laws that have been broken. Rather, they are somewhat arbitrary rules applied by the FA when and how they see fit. There is no particular precedent in Premier League history of such a case. More pertinently, the evidence against Luis Suarez was rather thin. It amounted to Luis Suarez’s own admission to saying some terms and Patrice Evra alleging them. That considered, if it was merely going to be a case of somebodies word against somebody else’s, then why would Luis Suarez admit to it unless he was sure of the fact that what he was saying was not racist. Perhaps Luis Suarez is a genuinely principled man. Perhaps Luis Suarez gambled, imagining the FA would not call his bluff and recognise that what he had said was not racist. Either way, until the appeal is heard, it seems, as things stand, that Luis Suarez, perhaps Liverpool’s most important player in lieu of Steven Gerrard, is likely to miss a fair portion of the remainder of the season.