Despite Suarez’s now official request to leave Liverpool, as he acknowledged an actual move could theoretically fail to happen, which invites the interesting possibility he may spend at least half a season more with LFC.
How would Liverpool fans respond? The player has always received full support from the club during his most trying moments, particularly during the Patrice Evra affair. Would he spend four months on the bench? For a lesser light in a deeper squad this could play out, but Suarez is considered Liverpool’s most important player.
If he’s a regular starter and is again the subject of controversy, will he still be a “Liverpool legend” and receive full backing from the Kop?
In any case, at least one fan has already picked a side.
He was speaking in an interview with GolTV’s Martin Charquero apparently. He often spins this kind of crap while on international duty however, and this may be nothing more than a case of having a nice whinge while on vacay.
But he does have a point: it was the English press that bit Ivanovic and the English press that repeatedly contradicted itself when giving its defense in Patrice Evra’s racial abuse case.
My goodness, it’s a twofer! Must because with the title decided and Wigan basically set to go down, it’s just starting to “hot up.” Anyway, Liverpool vs Everton above, and Man United vs Chelsea below. If you want to be cool and follow the floating heads on Twitter, it’s @amhrichardson and @iamthemonkey.
Are you a bored partisan plebe who has nothing better to do in their spare time than mull over FA arguments in search of inconsistencies as proof that England’s Football Association is corrupt, hates your club and your club alone, and wants Luis Suarez to die because he’s Uruguayan and because Liverpool must be prevented from ever winning the Premier League again?
This is practically old news now but I thought I would use this as an opportunity to just cram all my Suarez opinionating into a single post considering we’re not going to hear about Suarez for a while.
Suarez Won’t Appeal the Ban: Suarez won’t play for Liverpool again until late Septmeber 2013 as he forgoes an appeal to the FA’s punishment.
What I think: Suarez’s lawyers told him not to after he got the full reasoning for the ban from the FA which is set to be released today, so he, for the best, decided not to make his situation worth. Here is his statement in full:
Value of My Opinion: .045
David Cameron’s remarks: British Prime Minister David Cameron defended his comments on Suarez in which he said biting set a bad example for the kids. Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers said they compromised the impartiality of the FA.
What I think: Yep, I’m sure the FA was scared of an offhand remark made the Prime Minister so they added…three games? This is just stupid, and Rodgers should have just his mouth and taken Tony’s advice:
Am I only one who thinks Rodgers should have said:”We’ll look at FA’s reason and decider whether to appeal. Other than that, no comment”?
Value of my opinion: About the same as a box of doughnuts with two missing.
Rodgers and Wenger both say the FA punished the man and not the incident: Yup. They both said that.
What I think: Well, maybe? The FA will be releasing their rationale for the decision in full. No doubt Suarez’s reputation precedes him, and this may have consciously or unconsciously affected the FA’s ten game ban for BITING. BITING. But there are several presumptions here, including the idea that the FA acts like a court of law. Maybe the FA might avoid this sort of thing if they just published a list of punishments for on-field events. Biting = ten games. Purple Nurples = four games. Cracking open the skull of your opponent and feasting on the goo inside = 6 games. And so on.
Value of my opinion: A DVD copy of Life of Pi.
There are rumours Suarez may leave England following match ban: Rodgers said this.
What I think: I’m sure there is a league where biters are awarded with automatic goals and racism is totally acceptable. I’m trying really hard here not to type a certain word that begins with an “I” and ends with a “Y.”
If the ten-game ban that Luis Suarez received for biting Branislav Ivanovic last Sunday was badly received in Liverpool, imagine how it went down in Uruguay.
Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher had written in support of Suarez in the Daily Mail that he’d rather get bitten than have his leg broken (though his argument fell down when he accepted that rules are different when you are talking about Liverpool’s best player, citing Charles Itandje, Liverpool’s third-choice goalkeeper, who left soon after he was caught laughing and joking during a Hillsborough Memorial service).
On Thursday morning, Pepe Reina went one step further than Carragher and as good as accused the FA of xenophobia, saying: “They treat Suarez differently, because he’s Uruguayan. He knows what he did is wrong, but ten games is absurd, excessive and unfair.”
The written explanation of Suarez’s ban will be received on Thursday—the FA really do themselves no favours by allowing the story to gather momentum before explaining the reasons and Liverpool have until Friday to appeal. They run the risk of a longer ban if the appeal is deemed ‘frivolous’, and of damaging their ‘global brand’ (awful words) if the lessons of the previous Suarez saga look like they have not been learned. As for Suarez the individual, his last year of careful reputation-building has been wasted; he’s back to square one again (or behind it, in fact).
And yet in Uruguay, the reaction has been unequivocal. Suarez is a victim; the media and FA are out to get him; therefore it’s time he left England. “Surely he will leave Liverpool,” wrote El Pais on Thursday. “Suarez always wanted to stay in England despite the hostile climate and tempting offers but this time, the striker is willing to listen to his agent.” The paper added that Suarez is keeping a brave face on his latest problem, not wanting to upset his pregnant wife. Read the rest of this entry »
On Sunday, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez wounded Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanović’s arm with his teeth, in a practice that is commonly referred to as biting. He bit another human being. And not for the first time.
Such naughty behavior is perhaps more common to preschools than football pitches. At least, this seems to be the thinking of the English Football Association, which has decided to treat the incident as such by informing Suarez’s mother of the episode and requesting her assistance in ensuring that it does not happen again.
