Posted January 12, 2012 by Footie Crisis in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

“Por que, negro?”

I’ll just let that hang there for a minute.

Just words on a page, yet the impact such words have had out there in the big bad world has been staggering.

I refer, of course, to the Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra ‘incident’. Not a pleasant one, obviously, but there has been endless debate since, so I won’t try to get too involved in the intricacies, merely refer to it in the point I wish to impart upon you, reader, which is that the criticism of Liverpool FC and Luis Suarez has been misguided.

For the last couple of week I have worn the same look on my face whenever I read an article and see the name Luis Suarez; utter bewilderment.

Not bewilderment at the racism and prejudice involved in football. That in itself is something which is clear cut, there is no place for racism. No, my perplexity is the result of the rank hypocrisy that infects the press, and the misguided witch hunt that has resulted in Suarez being hung out to dry.

I’ve never seen a bigger bandwagon than the one marching and banging its drums at Luis Suarez. “LUIS SUAREZ RACIST, LUIS SUAREZ RACIST” they’re dying to scream out, the Daily Mirror practically did this with its ‘Racist’ back page headline. As a result, Liverpool FC, in their bid to defend their man, have been branded as racists by association. If there is such a thing, Liverpool FC, and its fans appear to be so.

The general feeling I get when you try and even debate the case intelligently, is that you should be ashamed to even think about arguing it. Racism by association is the bug that’s preventing good honest discourse. Anybody who has an opinion tends to be shot down immediately; our arguments dismissed with a lazy ‘bias’ or ‘tribal’ excuse.

The same journalists who choose to write how Liverpool have shown no grace or respect in their defence of the bad man have their employee newspapers printing pictures of tits on Page 3 and talk longingly about the Premiership legend that is the openly fascist Paolo Di Canio.

So far, I am yet to see any mainstream English journalist tackle the obviously flawed FA report into the racism case. Liverpool were well within their right to brand the trial subjective, and whether Suarez said it or not, the question is how we can definitely be sure. The answer is we can’t, because there isn’t enough evidence. Instead, we have a cauldron of changing accounts (from both sides), inconsistencies, controversies in practice and then we land at the point of ‘Probably racially abused him: definitely 8 game ban’.

It seems incredibly easy to sit high up and condemn those below you. With every news outlet in the country revelling in their position as moral compass. The very concept of ‘newspaper’ and ‘moral compass’ is a laughable oxymoron when applied to the majority of the rags in Britain.

Yet those dismissing the misgivings of people arguing the Suarez verdict should remember that there is no problem in challenging something that is deemed ‘official’, in fact, it should be encouraged. Any journalist reading that report should try to challenge it, if they had good journalistic instinct, they should be happy to dismantle it as easily as one lawyer seems to easily have done here, for Tomkins Times.

I’ve never known the British Government to release a report that hasn’t been combed over and analysed to an inch of its life. So why has the FA report so readily accepted? When it comes to football, it seems the sports journalists in the national press aren’t accustomed to investigation. I don’t blame them I suppose, when you spend your days making up transfer stories and reporting on ‘Tweets’, how reliable can you be when it comes to critically analysing a report?

It is unfortunate that it is Liverpool fans who are being discredited for ‘blindly supporting’ Suarez. It’s only because it’s their player that is on the receiving end of the punishment that there is a feeling they must go that extra mile to look into the report whereas your average Bob Punter need only read about it in a tabloid to form his opinion. The same situation would no doubt have happened at any club should one of their players become entangled in such a high profile case.

From a personal point of view, it makes me wonder how reliable the information is I get from newspapers on other, world news reports. If I had not read the Suarez report itself, I may well have had my mind made up that the debate was without question. Yet after reading it, I can only deem that it is in-fact inconclusive. It goes some lengths to highlight the amount of trust we place into the journalist who writes the article we read, on any matter of importance.

There is an obsession with being offended in the country at the moment and dare I say it, it’s getting a bit much. Over 20,000 people complained about Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘outrageous’ comment on the One Show while nowhere near that figure would bat an eye lid as David Cameron and co break up the country and sell it off piece by piece.

Of course, everyone has a right to be offended, but, what of it? You’re offended, carry on. A world without offence is just one step away from a world were men are threatened with their lives for drawing a picture of another man called Muhammad. The real battle and focus for the press should be on the deeper problems in the game regarding racism.

So Luis Suarez ‘may’ have used a taboo word during a heated argument. Though it should be remembered that even the word itself has been subject of debate (inside and outside of the hearing) regarding whether it is an offensive term, unlike for instance had he used a more clear cut term such as nigger, which is what Evra initially claimed.

Racism is of course abhorrent. But the international outcry at Suarez and Liverpool FC has been borderline carnivalesque. Where is the grass roots investigation? Where is the press report into racism in this country. It exists all around us. It stinks of selective hearing that journalists will lazily churn out this report, ignoring its cultural nuances and complexity. I fear that in their rush to condemn everyone involved in the whole case, they have trampled over the most important issues relating to race and prejudice in this country. While Liverpool has been unofficially declared racist by association, it should be remembered and reported that according to this official home office document, Liverpool and Manchester City were the only teams in 2010/2011 that did not have to ban a fan for racially aggravated abuse or chanting.

In summary, I think that in the mad scramble to fill pages and timelines with Luis Suarez churnalism, the real issues of racism have been overlooked. People are so happy to be offended by pretty much anything, that it becomes almost taboo to challenge such a view. Is this right? Certainly not. The problem seems to be that sensationalism and the need to ‘get a headline’ or make a point (as the FA have been accused of doing in relation the FIFA racism ‘storm’), has affected both the FA and the press. I am yet to be convinced that anybody in the press gives two hoots about racism any further than a Luis Suarez headline. The overriding feeling of condescending disapproval of Liverpool FC and its fans is nothing but short-sighted. The issues at hand are far deeper than many lazy hacks are willing to delve. Ironically, I’m sure that if Liverpool fans hadn’t of so vehemently defended Suarez, the press would have quickly moved on to the next headline without so much as a second thought.

Adios, vos blancos y negros.

Chris Severs