By guest writer: Jamie McLaughlin
Through gritted teeth, and with no admission to guilt Liverpool have now accepted the decision by the FA to ban Luis Suarez for 8 matches. Both Liverpool and Suarez issued statements of resignation to the fact that they have to accept the ban, although in their statements there is no admission of being guilty to the charge.
But deep down they know that it is pointless and a waste of time to challenge the FA in a case involving a Manchester United player whose manager is the “Godfather” of the FA and Suarez was found guilty before the trial on the grounds of one man’s word against another man’s word with no witnesses.
The alleged victim Evra was apparently a more credible witness with his testimony, regardless of his history of troublemaking and even once trying to get a grounds man into trouble at Chelsea.
The FA was obviously just wanting to make an example of someone after showing discontent at Blatter’s comments towards racism recently. Suarez has just been made a scapegoat in this whole political affair.
An 8 game ban seems terribly harsh for the crime when a player can end a player’s career with a reckless challenge on the field and may not even get a ban for his crime. Funnily enough an example that springs to mind involved another Manchester United player, Roy Keane whose career ending tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland resulted in Keane receiving a 3 match ban and a small fine of £5000, OK so he got another ban later when he admitted in his autobiography of deliberately trying to “hurt” Haaland, where he received a 5 match ban for his comments. So in total Keane’s ban resulted in the same as Suarez, but I know what I think was the more serious crime and yet the punishment seems lenient to say the least.
The ban is not the biggest factor in this case, although it will hurt Liverpool’s ambitions this season. The biggest factor is that Suarez has been labelled a “racist” and mud sticks and this will never leave him. Everywhere he plays in England he will be subject to abuse from the opposing supporters and as we saw recently at Fulham he will receive no protection from anybody and he will be under scrutiny as all eyes will be on a reaction from him as he will be expected to show no retaliation, like he showed at Fulham which resulted in another ban for the unfortunate striker.
I also fear Liverpool losing him altogether as I would consider leaving this country if I was him and go to a country that will appreciate his talent. I hope for Liverpool’s sake that he doesn’t feel like me, but life will be so much more difficult for him now in this country.
But one thing that Suarez can be sure of is that he will never walk alone as long as he remains at Liverpool.
Written by Jamie McLaughlin, who writes for Anfield News
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