After the whole ‘handshakegate’ debacle at Old Trafford, the gaggle of knaves and perpetual shit stirrers that is the press saw fit to equate a man’s refusal to extend a hand as akin to an endorsement of the Third Reich. Yes we can argue about the flaws in our handling of the whole Suarez affair. But for me the main culprits are not Evra or Man Utd but the F.A. This organisation had a great opportunity to show themselves as being worthy overlords of this beautiful sport. But rather than suck out the poison, they decided to push their own agenda and used the media to destroy a player’s career. Slur Alex who more and more seems to succumb to his illness of acute hypocrisy, gets no reprimand for his ridiculous comments. But Dalglish gets accused of being an advocate of racism by almost every section of society.
I personally believe that Patrice Evra was legitimately offended and I also believe that Suarez was misunderstood. This left the F.A. with an opportunity to act as moral arbiters and get these two men in a room to hash out their differences without the influence of both clubs and the media. Instead they used the situation for a game of one-upmanship with FIFA, destroyed a player’s reputation and added more bitterness to our rivalry with the Mancs. Racism it goes without saying is abhorrent, but sometimes education and not condemnation is required (especially so in this situation) to solve the problem. They could have told Luis why using terms like ‘Negro’ or ‘Negrito’ might be deemed offensive in England, even if the terms are considered fairly innocuous in Uruguay.
Albert Maysles once said ‘Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance’, and from that you could argue we are no different to Iran or Saudi Arabia because in this country we have some right moral absolutist cunts who see things in terms of black and white, and good and evil. Some people even had the temerity to suggest John Barnes and Glen Johnson swear fealty to Evra because they’re all black which is racist in itself. Liverpool tried to move forward but I fear by accepting the ban we may have given ammunition to our enemies to attack us.
I could go on forever but I won’t because this whole situation just pisses me off and has only increased my hatred for the media and confirmed the venality of the F.A.