Liverpool FC is NOT Racist

I didn't want to write a blog on the current issues surrounding my football club. The situation deals with some major issues which as an amateur writer, I thought I wasn't qualified to comment on and so decided to refrain from doing so. The accusation, the following report, the decision to not appeal are all issues which need to be commented on but I think they have been discussed at length by people more qualified than me. This changed for me on Friday night though when I was watching the Oldham game. We saw that Oldham player Tom Adeymi was near to the Kop when something offensive was said to him by a member of the crowd. He was clearly hurt by what had been said, he seemed upset and was visibly distraught by what he had heard. While this incident occurred, the Kop faithful were signing the name of their current superstar, one of the most exciting players seen at the club in years, and the man who had just been found guilty by an FA appointed panel of Racially abusing Patrice Evra, Luis Suarez. Whats moved me to post about this is the reaction of people to this second incident, as if the two are related in any way. It seems that anybody now, no matter how unqualified, is allowed to now take this incident pack it together with the Suarez one and deem that all Liverpool fans, and the club itself is inherently racist. This is simply not true and it has changed my decision regarding commenting on this whole thing.

First of all lets look at the case of Luis Suarez, on the face of it, it seems pretty straight-forward. There was an accusation of racist abuse, there was an investigation, Suarez was found guilty by an independent panel and punished accordingly. If you choose not to look any further into the case, and if it suits your agenda, that's pretty much all there is to this whole scenario. This isn't a case of Liverpool fans simply defending their man blindly, its because as the party who feels hard done by in this, we have looked into the case and the 115 page report on the ruling more extensively because we need to understand what has happened. Unfortunately when you do take the time to look into the report closely you see that there are a lot of holes in the case. You discover that as this ruling was made by tribunal the burden of proof was not as high as it would have been for a trial in court. You discover that Luis Suarez was found guilty on the basis that he was “on the balance of probabilities” guilty, whereas if this had been a trial in front of a jury, he would have had to proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The balance of probabilities is where those who defend Suarez base their opinions. Its a fact, from the report which was released, that absolutely no further evidence came to light to prove either party right. The accusation it seems is what was deemed enough to find Luis Suarez guilty and see an 8 Match ban handed down. An accusation which of course could not be proven, it was found to “probably” be right. Lets be clear on this point, either before or after the release of the findings, no man or woman on this earth can be absolutely certain of what was said between Evra and Suarez, in the report it is clear that Nobody else saw or heard Luis Suarez racially abuse Patrice Evra. What is clear, and has been admitted by Suarez, that the word “negro” was used at least once. It is also important to remember that the exchange of words was initiated by Patrice Evra, and when he initiated the exchange he chose to do so in the Spanish language. So the word negro was used, but not the English word negro (nee-gro) but the Spanish word negro (neh-gro), these are two completely different things and without getting into the complicated arguments of intent and the nuances of culture we can accept this, as it has been accepted by both parties ,as fact. The only evidence that this word was used more than once comes from Evra himself, and has zero independent corroboration of any kind. What is not clear from the report is why they have chosen to accept everything Evra says as fact in spite of inaccuracies in his evidence, but chosen to deem Suarez’s evidence untrustworthy as a result of perceived inaccuracies in his. In the report small inaccuracies in Suarez’s evidence are given weight and used to paint him as an untrustworthy witness. The panel seems to take a completely different view with regard to Evra. His offensive behaviour, and frequent changes to his account of things are accepted as nothing more than mistakes. At different stages of the proceedings Evra claims he was called “a black,” “a fucking black”, “a nigger” only to settle eventually in the report on “Negro”. He also initially claimed to have been insulted “10 times” but the report found this number to actually be 7, the panel eventually write this off as a nuance of the french language “10 times” it is said is just a figure of speech in French. Hilariously (or at least it would be hilarious if it were not so serious) the report actually says that testimony from Liverpool’s Director of Football Damien Commoli back up this “figure of speech” claim. However, when you actually look at Comolli’s testimony, it absolutely does not back this up. Comolli is asked if a frenchman may use this phrase in a general term and he answers, well you might use it to a child i.e ive old you ten times already, but if you were dealing with an adult you would certainly apply greater accuracy. This, in absolute contrast to the report’s claim of it backing up Evra’s statement, actually contradicts it.
You also have to wonder why when translating Evra’s comments the panel chooses to accept the lightest translation, changing a comment which can be translated as “your sister’s cunt” to “fucking hell”, whereas when translating Suarez’s words they change what can be translated as “calm down pal” to “Because your black”. Evra and the report itself both state that they do not believe that Luis Suarez is not a racist yet they believe that a man who, according to them, is not racist and has no record of racist offences suddenly decided to abandon this and fly into a racist tirade. The decision to translate the Spanish word “negro” to literally mean “Black” is very strange as well as the words used around it greatly change the meaning of this word.
The main problem with the whole case is that it still boiled down to one mans word against the
other and the panel decided to not only back up one mans claim without it being substantiated, they also handed out the most harsh possible punishment. It is for this reason that Liverpool choose to back their man to the hilt. It is for this reason that Liverpool fans defend a man who has been found guilty of such a charge. The insinuation is that if you dare to defend Suarez, certain people will label you a racist and presume you are condoning it. The reality is if there were evidence to back up the accusation or to increase the probability of Suarez being guilty, then we would have to accept this and revise our opinion of the man, but this evidence has NOT come to light and that is why we choose to defend our man. What should also be highlighted is that the fact that Liverpool chose not to appeal this decision is not an admission of guilt. It is stipulated in this case that Liverpool, or Luis Suarez do not have the right to appeal the ruling in this case. They do have the right to appeal the length of the ban but this seems a bit pointless. Liverpool's intention from the start has been to clear Suarez’s name the ruling effectively means this is no longer possible and so rather than risk increasing the ban it was decided it was best to just get it over and done with.


What happened on Friday night was something completely different and must be viewed as such. Yet again there is an accusation but in this instance there are witnesses to corroborate this. As of right now all we know is that there has been an accusation. The complainant, Tom Adeyemi, said he was racially abused by a member of the crowd. I think there is no doubt that what he heard hurt him in a really bad way, you could clearly see how it cut him and the upset it caused. Liverpool FC released a statement to assure everybody that they would assist with investigations in any way possible. The police have taken statements from witnesses and have arrested a man in connection to this. In this instance the case will go to court and will be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” If found guilty he will rightly be punished by the courts and will be banned from football ground for the rest of his life. There is no right minded person would defend a man who has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt!