Like a lot of Liverpool fans, I’m sick of the moralising by holier-than-thou types about ‘our’ behaviour. The main evil of racism is that it brands everyone as the same, in an often derogatory manner. So yes, clearly Liverpool fans are all the same, and clearly this is no kind of stereotyping.

(That’s right, travelling United supporters, we’re all murderers, and “96 was not enough”. Equally, that doesn’t make all United fans lowlifes, and the same applies to Liverpool fans, most of whom have never sung a song about Munich. Fans of all clubs can be as bad as each other, especially inside the stadium.)

One shit-for-brains bloke (allegedly) racially abuses an Oldham player; suddenly it was ‘a section of the Kop’. It was in online editions of newspapers within minutes. Never mind that at the time, the player, Tom Adeyemi, may have misheard – there’s no doubt that he believed he’d been insulted, but in 2004, something similar happened in a game between Norwich and Everton (http://www.kickitout.org/news.php/news_id/140).

Never mind that the hysteria surrounding racism and Liverpool, whipped up to a frenzy by the mass media, may have caused Adeyemi to think he heard something offensive – the stories were published, and the accusations were made, before a shred of evidence existed. I’m not sure if the guy in the Kop has been charged and found guilty or innocent, or whether he said Manc bastard (due to Oldham’s location) or black bastard, but if he did racially abuse Adeyemi, then we don’t want to see his ilk at Anfield. But the Kop were condemned before the facts were even known.

This time, one neanderthal makes monkey gestures, and we all tarred; even though it’s just one man in a crowd of 44,000. (Lock him in a cage, where he belongs, and feed him bananas, if that’s how he wants to behave.) So far, that’s two people out of combined crowds of around 80,000, who have acted like throwbacks from a bygone age, with only one of them proved to have done so (in that the man making the monkey gestures was clearly captured on tape, and has no excuse unless he himself was an actual monkey.)

Patrice Evra is booed, and suddenly it’s a ‘racist’ attack by Liverpool fans. Eh?

Let’s get one thing straight: Evra was always going to be booed. Anyone making racist gestures deserved to be removed from the ground and banned, but showing displeasure – by booing – for a player who freely admitted to starting the argument with Suarez by saying the Spanish phrase “your sister’s cunt” (which in itself is weird, given that Evra is French, and this was in England), and who kissed the United badge at the Kop end around the time of the Suarez squabble, is confusing the matter. Evra was a marked man even before the allegations of racism arose.

Fact: as captain, kiss the United badge to Liverpool fans at the Kop end, and you’ll be booed upon your return. (When I Googled the following image, the results were from United forums, saying how great it was. If he was a hero for doing so, then Liverpool fans will think him a villain. Wayne Rooney and Gary Neville suffer the same fate; are they black?)

Make no mistake, Liverpool fans have a lot of reasons to boo Evra, and none are to do with his colour. Alas, 40,000 people cannot express the complexities of their feelings toward the player in any other way than booing.

Yes, it looks bad to outsiders when you boo a player who claims he was racially abused, but a crowd does not have the facility to express subtleties and nuances. You can boo a player and it not mean that you are condoning racism, or blaming him for reporting the matter. Singing “We’re not racists, we only hate Mancs” was designed for this purpose, but its simplicity doesn’t tell the full story.

Consider, if you will, the alternative: Suarez gets found totally innocent, as could just as easily happened based on the balance of probabilities (in a case that would never have gone to trial in a real court, due to the total lack of evidence), and what happens when he next appears at Old Trafford?

He gets booed, and called a racist. If Evra was to admit that he made it all up (and I’m not saying he did), Suarez would get booed. He would. You know he would.

Anyone saying otherwise is deluded; after all, he was getting this kind abuse from crowds before a decision was reached, and with no actual evidence in the public domain to suggest that it was fair for fans to condemn him. It’s not like clear video evidence existed on YouTube, for example.

And remember, Suarez was convicted by a ‘court’ that has a success rate above 99%. The success rates of witch trails was only a fraction of a percent better when the accused either drowned or, if they floated, were then forcibly drowned – 100% dead. Justice is not served by a process that finds just only one in every 200 people innocent; the odds of being right should be nowhere near 100%.

This ‘independent’ process was actually a case of the FA acting as the prosecution, and selecting the ‘independent’ panel whose job, you sense, was to side with the people employing them. One was a man who boasts of “saving Sir Alex Ferguson’s job”.

The fallout after the game – in which Liverpool snuck a late winner in the very section of pitch where Evra had kissed the United badge – overshadowed an excellent victory, but win, lose or draw, we knew what the narrative would be. There’s been more condemnation for Liverpool fans than the Chelsea fans who, inside the stadium, chanted “Anton Ferdinand, you know what you are”, or those who sang racist songs on a train. John Terry has been described as almost heroic in the way he’s dealt with his situation. He’s a big, brave white lion.

(As an aside, look at how the FA charged a black foreigner accused of stamping on an opponent last week with the way the reacted when it was a white England captain all those years ago. Who was found guilty, Balotelli or Shearer? As another aside, look at how the ‘handshake’ issue was handled by the FA, just months after lambasting Sepp Blatter’s handshake idea. Even though Blatter wanted to end all matters with a handshake, which is daft, Ferdinand should never have been pressurised into shaking Terry’s hand, as the FA were doing in the lead-up to the game.)

Liverpool fans booing Evra was worthy of five Tweets by one senior journalist, but a bullet in the post to Ferdinand was worthy of only one. Remember, boos are just disapproval, straight from a pantomime; a bullet is a death threat. (Even then, sent by just one lunatic, not the thousands of decent Chelsea fans.)

And a leading race campaigner, who also just happens to be on the board of the Chelsea FC Foundation, said of the posted bullet that “it’s time for real Chelsea fans to stand up”, while Liverpool, as a club and a set of fans, have been roundly condemned by that same campaigner.

Never mind that the FA report, for all its flaws, clearly stated that Luis Suarez “is not a racist”. Evra said the same. But everywhere, Suarez gets called a racist.

Suarez admitted to, on one occasion, using a word that linguistics experts said would not be racist, if used in the way Suarez claimed. Evra claimed the word was used more than once, albeit with inconsistencies is the frequency.

Evra also changed the accusation from the Spanish word for black (‘negro’, pronounced neg-gro, not nee-gro) to the far more pejorative ‘nigger’. (While negro is insulting in English, it is still on the US census as a form of race at the request of 56,000 members of the black community; ‘nigger’ would never be anywhere near a census. My point here is only to say that ‘nigger’ is obviously regarded as worse than ‘negro’, and Evra changed his story between one and the other.)

The stories of both men are riddled with inconsistencies, as perhaps happens when trying to recall an emotional, heat-of-the-moment exchange that took place, but Evra’s were explained away by the panel, and Suarez’s were condemned. Liverpool fans are angry about that. Reading the document, it seems like a case of trying to make the facts fit the accusation, rather than weighing the evidence (or lack thereof) and making a sound judgement. But of course, the FA’s job is to find guilty; they are the prosecutor.

“The experts concluded their observations on Mr Suarez’s account as follows. If Mr Suarez used the word “negro” as described by Mr Suarez, this would not be interpreted as either offensive or offensive in racial terms in Uruguay and Spanish-speaking America.”

If Liverpool fans would rather believe this, than the somewhat dubious ‘balance of probabilities’ decision reached, that should be our right, without being apologists for racism. Our argument is that, based on the facts in the case, there is no evidence of racism; just the single use, as admitted by Suarez, of one word that was lost in translation.

This is not to say that Evra is lying (although it should have been acknowledged that a previous FA hearing found his evidence to be unreliable); just that finding who was telling the truth should have been labelled an impossible task.

To use “he was found guilty” as an attempt to shut down all debate is unhelpful. Look at this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miscarriage_of_justice_cases

Again, this doesn’t mean that Suarez is therefore definitely innocent. It just means that unfair procedures – and the FA has been criticised by the government for its unfair procedures (the evidence of which is the 99.2% conviction rate) – cannot be trusted to dispense justice. Kangaroo courts in countries with dictatorships don’t convict as readily.

What’s the betting that if John Terry gets found innocent in the crown court case, he won’t be charged by the FA? Remember, the FA don’t need much evidence to convict; and remember, Suarez’s case wouldn’t have even gone to court, given how weak it was. My betting is that the FA will say that the higher power found Terry innocent, as they could not find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, therefore that’s the end of the matter. Well, that higher power would have found Suarez innocent, too. Indeed, it wouldn’t have even got that far.

Again, this is not to say that Terry is guilty. He deserves a fair hearing, like anyone else. It’s just the double standards that rankle.

Many United fans are being self-righteous, despite defending Peter Schmeichel in his spats with Ian Wright, when the Arsenal man alleged he was racially abused. They sing about their South Korean midfielder eating dogs, and sang about Rafa Benítez as our “fat Spanish waiter”. Some sing vile songs about Hillsborough, and mock the dead. This is no high horse to proudly sit atop.

You have my word that if any Liverpool player is proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, to have racially abused someone, I will heartily condemn them. You have my word; come back and see me. But guilt based on the balance of probabilities from a disciplinary body that finds guilty more than 99% of those who stand accused? – Never! The Guardian, of which I always considered myself a proud reader (and in the 1990s, an employee) would rightly rally to free people convicted by less dubious methods.

I’d like to say that this will be my last comment on the subject, but it’s likely to raise its head in a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t blame Kenny for leaving out Suarez, such is the hatred for him in Manchester.

Finally, go and click on the following three links, with the first two pieces written by someone with no interest in football and no allegiances.

http://newsframes.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/media-on-racism-churnalism/

http://newsframes.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/media-on-racism-framing/

http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/lfc/2012-01-29/5709/maybe-that-anger-isnt-a-lack-of-respect.html/

A lot of people are putting Liverpool’s run of poor form down to the signings made in 2011. While a lot of money was spent, it’s important to remember that several players who didn’t want to be at Liverpool FC anymore – some of them erstwhile idols – were sold in the process.

Some fans and pundits blame Kenny Dalglish for certain signings, others are gunning for Damien Comolli. But in this situation, both the manager and the Director of Football have agreed to all the deals, so it seems wrong to apportion blame to one or the other (or indeed credit on the transfers that have worked).

It’s also important to note that without Lucas Leiva and Luis Suarez – the Reds’ best players this season – the XI will be considerably weakened; add Gerrard’s obvious rustiness, and it’s been a struggle at times, as the early season flow has ebbed away. That said, the performance at Bolton was undeniably dreadful.

Criticism keeps coming back to the signings of Carroll, Downing, Adam and Henderson. As a quartet, for the money paid, they look rather uninspiring; perhaps they are just too British and unremarkable. There seems to have been a desire (beyond quota necessities) to go down a British route for the past 18 months.

Having analysed almost 2,000 Premier League signings since 1994, I can see no correlation between buying British (or players with Premier League experience) and a greater deal of hits than misses. You get successes and failures either way, but there are obviously more good players beyond these shores (a whole world of them) than within.

Indeed, if you look at Liverpool’s purchasing over the last 20 years, the majority of those bought from this league have failed to meet expectations.

The best buys – Hyypia, Torres, Reina, Alonso, Lucas, Babbel, Agger, Kuyt and Suarez – had no prior experience of our league (while Mascherano had just a handful of games) before arriving; beyond Hamann, and McAllister for those six weeks in 2001, I’m struggling to think of one Liverpool signing from the Premier League since its inception that can stand alongside those players. (Finnan was very good, albeit after a poor first year.) There have been quite a few decent ones, but few outstanding.

Having said that, two of the Reds best players this season – Enrique and Bellamy – had experience of our league, and were bargains due to contractual situations. But even they’ve been eclipsed by Suarez from the 2011 signings. Meanwhile, Hodgson’s one and only success out of six attempts in 2010 was Meireles, from Porto; Cole (on massive wages) and Konchesky flopped.

I agree that the quartet of ‘overpriced’ Brits signed in 2011 does underwhelm as a collection – even if it’s unfair to simply ignore the quartet of successes bought in the same period. Just as you wouldn’t say Dalglish and Comolli’s purchasing has been a complete success based purely on buying Suarez, Enrique, Bellamy and the quietly impressive Coates, you can’t write off their business by ignoring the deals they got right.

As bringing down the wage bill was part of the criteria, and Champions League football was not an incentive to offer, there were limitations in place, so it’s not been a case of cherry-picking the elite.

And that quartet is not beyond hope.

For me, Henderson – as one of those seen by many to be failing – has actually been increasingly impressive (albeit in an ‘unremarkable’ way, a la early Lucas), and I think he has a very bright future. He’s often looked lost on the right, when doing a job out there for the team, but has still had some bright moments out there. In the middle, he sees things early. He’s a fine first-time passer, and that’s quite rare in English midfielders, even if he does have the classic British ‘good engine’.

I’ve discussed Carroll at length in the past, but the longer it goes on, the more the doubts get cemented; the longer he fails, the greater the weight grows. The pressure of being a Liverpool player, as well as a record transfer, is not sitting easily on his broad shoulders.

He’s not even doing the things he’d proven good at earlier in his career; such as heading at goal. That tells me it’s largely a confidence issue, rather than a technical one. Things that were once routine and instinctive are now laboured and over-thought.

Crucially, he lacks the pace to be a menace in other areas, to compensate for those times when the goals aren’t going in. And though he’s worked hard in some recent games, whilst being isolated up front, I don’t like seeing the way he gives up in certain situations, and moans rather than chasing back. His general attitude doesn’t look the best, and maybe he has to mature as a person before he can mature as a player.

That said, he has superb shooting technique, particularly when he doesn’t have time to dwell on what to do (another sign of confidence issues).

There’s something there; more raw talent than he’s given credit for. But like players whose touch isn’t perfect, his can look awful when low on confidence. (Maybe the defining skill of great players is that their first touch remains, even when they’re struggling to score – or whatever it is they are in the side to do. Most players struggle to control the ball as well when in poor form, as the body becomes more rigid due to anxiety; there’s less of that perfect ‘give’ in the contact. Those very best players, you feel, could control the ball blindfolded, with their feet moored in hard-set cement.)

I’ve no doubt that Carroll can be a lot better than he’s shown during a difficult first year, but it’s getting harder to see him living up to initial expectations, or matching the striker who improved rapidly in his final 18 months at Newcastle. I’ve noted it before, but the kind of striker he is – the big, strong target-man without blistering pace – tends to get better with age and experience (as he learns how to take up better positions, and uses his wiles to trick and bully defenders). But it may need a move to a smaller club, for a smaller fee, to enable him to relax back into his game. Right now, it seems that there’s no end in sight to his tension.

Stewart Downing is another concern. He’s always been a good player, but once there’s a £20m price tag, people expect a great one. He started brightly, but has faded to relative anonymity. That said, he has done part of his job to good effect.

The ex-Villa winger has created a whopping 41 chances in the league this season, yet has no assists. Numbers can never tell you how good chances are, but it’s often not been his fault that the person on the end of the pass or cross hasn’t converted it.

There’s also no doubt that he started very brightly before losing his confidence; Nigel Clough Syndrome, as it were. Downing looks a fine addition to the squad, but needs to take more responsibility in the final third. He seems to shoot when 30 yards out, when nothing is expected, but passes the buck, and the ball, when better placed.

Then there’s Charlie Adam. I admit that I’m struggling a bit with the Scot, although since Lucas’ injury (and the injury and suspensions suffered by Spearing) he’s not had a partner who does the dirty work, which hasn’t helped. (Gerrard is just not tactically alert enough.)

Adam has great long-range passing ability, and can be hard to stop when he runs with the ball, but just seems so stupid at times: daft shots from his own half, daft tackles where he fouls on purpose, and even his famed set-pieces have stopped beating the first man. (Another sign of confidence and pressure; Adam’s corners have turned into a waste, and Carroll’s headers rarely trouble keepers.)

That said, Adam, at the fee paid, isn’t a bad signing. He’s certainly an upgrade on Christian Poulsen – just less so on Meireles and Aquilani.

Success Rates

I’ve referred to it many times, but my theory is that 50% seems to be a decent success rate for transfers. The more you pay, the greater the odds of success; even if it’s still nowhere near guaranteed. But overall, you’ll do well to better 50% of signings being spot-on.

(For Liverpool, only Bob Paisley bettered it; he still signed flops, but had an incredible success rate. Shankly, Benítez and Dalglish MKI didn’t have the best strike rates, but when they got it right, they added brilliance on numerous occasions. Houllier only really succeeded when buying defensive players, whereas Roy Evans got the Reds playing good attacking football, but didn’t make one great signing of any kind. Souness not only bought badly on the whole, but little was recouped from his deals.)

To date, based on the performances of the big signings (over £10m), Dalglish/Comolli have probably fallen below the usual success rate for such purchases; but with the cheaper ones, they have a better than average success rate.

If you look at Manchester City’s rise to the top, it came via a rapid keep-and-discard policy. They paid £25m for Emmanuel Adebayor, and awarded him three times the wages Andy Carroll receives; and yet now he’s loaned to Spurs, to help them challenge at the top. City still pay most of his £12m a year wages.

Jo, for £19m, came and went. Robinho broke the transfer record, but failed to show any commitment. Lescott is now playing well, but looked iffy for quite a while at £22m. Milner also took a while to look the part. Jerome Boateng cost £11m, but came and went. Tal Ben-Haim didn’t do anything. Then there’s £17.5m Santa Cruz.

Savic, for £9m, has looked shaky, but he’s a young defender, and that happens. However, Samir Nasri – full of Premier League experience (and excellence) – has failed to settle after a £22m move. Eden Dzeko has had just a couple of prolific months amid a year of profligacy; he was crap, then he was sensational, and now he’s just ‘okay’.

Of course, City can afford to let dead wood float to the outer regions of their squad, and take large financial hits on flops. But it shows how they didn’t just sign Aguero, Balotelli, Kompany, Silva, Yaya Toure et al in one fell swoop, and they weren’t all instantly outstanding. City bought just as many failures over the past four years, but successful teams are built by retaining the best buys in each window and, further down the line, cutting losses on the worst. City did it quickly, but it still took about four years to build this team.

Spurs remain ahead of Liverpool because they have been building over the past four or five years. Some of Comolli’s initial ‘flops’ from his time there now undoubtedly key men; particularly Bale and Modric.

This summer, Redknapp offloaded half of the misfiring strikers he’d bought (Keane and Crouch, who barely scored in the league last season), and appears to have invested more wisely this time around (although the aforementioned ‘borrowing’ of Adebayor suggests the loan ruling is a farce). Van der Vaart was a very good signing last season, but Steven Pienaar has disappeared without trace.

It’s clearly been a gradual process, though, and stability at the top, and Champions League qualification, has meant that they’ve held onto their best players. By comparison, Liverpool have been far more unsettled. By contrast, Liverpool are in transition.

Arsenal are also in transition; losing key men (Fabregas, Nasri), suffering injuries, and buying several new players in 2011. Oxlade-Chamberlain, costing £12m at just 18, looks a very good buy, although he’s only started one league game (his impact will be longer term). Mikel Arteta is another good buy, but even so, is Fabregas-Lite. However, the defending of Per Mertesacker and Andre Santos has been very poor in the games I’ve seen (as has the rookie Jenkinson, though at 19 he has an excuse), and Yossi Benayoun has barely featured. The Korean, Park Chu-Young, has made no impact whatsoever.

And Wenger is someone with an excellent transfer record.

Turnover

Bearing in mind my theory of a 50% strike rate on transfers, I’m always nervous when there’s a high turnover of players in a window. If you sell four good players, and buy four new players, you will almost certainly not end up with four successes; particularly so in the early period, when some acclimatisation may be necessary. For every good player you sell, you almost have to buy two to cover the odds of failure.

I think it’s fair to say that Liverpool needed to get rid of a fair few players in 2011. Some were on exorbitant wages, and some wanted out anyway; in many cases, it was players on exorbitant wages who wanted out. Plenty weren’t that young. Change was unavoidable.

So I hesitate before criticising the selling of these players, given the varying reasons behind the departures.

That said, Torres, Meireles, Aquilani, Babel and Cole (in terms of talent, if not application) were all experienced internationals with lots of ability. Would Liverpool be better off having kept them? If it was possible, then the short term, perhaps yes; even if, long term, these were not the future of the club.

Now, by contrast, it’s fair to say that Kyrgiakos’ time was up, and Poulsen’s time was up years ago. Degen had to be shown the door, as he’d probably not be able to find it himself. And Jovanovic never settled. Nabil El Zhar never lived up to early promise. And Insua, Ngog and Ayala were young and likely to have good careers, if not necessarily in the Liverpool first team (although I’m still not sure why Ayala wasn’t simply loaned to Norwich). These were the players that Liverpool didn’t particularly need.

Torres, Meireles, Aquilani and Babel, however, were players who, at the very least, were usually worthy of a place in Liverpool’s 18 man match-day squad. They weren’t perfect: Torres had grown moody, Meireles bottled tackles, Aquilani had injury issues and Babel could drive you mad.

But Torres was still fairly prolific for the Reds; Meireles was good enough for Chelsea to poach; Aquilani was cast off to the Italian champions; and Babel had raw pace and the ability to score a few goals, when he found his way in from a blind alley (and has since returned to the Dutch squad).

Were Carroll, Henderson, Adam and Downing likely to be better? Based on my theory, no.

To compare, the fees were almost identical; Liverpool spent approximately £75m on that new quartet, after raising roughly £73m. However, it’s only fair to note that the wages for the new players are considerably lower – several million pounds per year – and that the average age of the new quartet is more than two years younger.

In some ways it’s reminiscent of 2002. Houllier had recently got rid of (or lost the services of) Fowler, Barmby, Babbel, McAllister, Litmanen and Ziege, who had played varying roles in two impressive seasons, and to replace them, spent a lot of money on young French-based players, in Diouf, Cheyrou and Diao. Experience and quality was lost, with little gained in return. Even though a case can be made for offloading each of those sold – age, injuries, attitude, etc – on the whole it proved counterproductive.

In 2002, Liverpool wasted money in France, and a cry when up to buy from these shores; now people think the Reds are wasting money in England. Of course, whereas Diao, Cheyrou and Diouf left as flops, the current crop still have time to prove themselves. But it does show the perils of overhauling a squad.

In order to add three or four successes, Liverpool had to buy twice that number of players, to beat the law of averages. Upgrading on flops is easy; the worst you can do is end up with more-or-less what you had to start with. Replacing quality is much harder.

And if you want to compare those two aforementioned quartets, and find unfavourably on the new guys, you have to then look at the remainder: Suarez, Bellamy, Coates and Enrique versus Ngog, Jovanovic, Insua and Poulsen.

With the 2011 net spend around £35m, but with the wage bill slashed due to lack of Champions League income, it could be said that Liverpool haven’t really moved on (or regressed) that much; reshaping the squad, without getting into debt.

The Reds are on course for 60 points, which is still 12 more than the tally (pro rata) posted under Hodgson, but have also won away at Stoke, Chelsea and Manchester City in the cup; three undeniably fine results that have taken the Reds to the brink of their first final since 2007. That’s clearly some kind of progress.

Crucially, the average age of the squad has been significantly lowered, which suggests that improvement is possible, as individuals mature and as the players get to know one another better.

But of course, the risk is also that these young men never come of age, and end up as dead wood. Making mistakes is part and parcel of the transfer business; but big decisions may lie in who deserves an extended period of perseverance, and who represents losses to be swiftly cut.

By football lawyer, Daniel Geey @FootballLaw. (Not that it should matter in terms of the veracity of the points he makes in terms of the glaring inconsistencies in the FA’s report, but it’s only fair to note upfront that Daniel is Liverpool fan).

Further analysis of the media’s treatment of the case (and racism in general) can be found here: http://newsframes.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/media-on-racism-churnalism/ by @NewsFrames 

Background, Introduction and Points to Note

The aim of this article is to put myself in the position of the LFC lawyers and to dissect a number of the Independent Regulatory Commission’s Report (IRCR) conclusions, had LFC decided to appeal to the FA Appeals Board. Although no appeal is to be pursued it may be helpful to disentangle a number of evidential issues that arose throughout the judgment and that have been commented on in the press in the last week or so.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive description of what the IRCR said. In fact, only the most significant evidential, credibility and consistency aspects of the decision are discussed. It means there will certainly be aspects of the decision that are not touched upon, in part because the judgment is 115 pages long and in part because it is important to get across the most salient and relevant points that LFC may have relied upon. The aim is not to go into every detailed issue but predominantly to pick out a number of key points or omissions in the IRCR and highlight their importance.

The structure of this piece is to (1) briefly set out the basic claims of Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez, (2) describe the legal tests that were used, (3) assess the key IRCR reasoning and conclusions, (4) assess a particularly key IRCR omission, (5) highlight corroborating evidential issues, (6) discuss the inconsistencies the IRCR find with Suarez’s account, and (7) briefly discuss the procedural grounds of any appeal.

Points to note:

• All that follows is based on the public IRCR document and not on the entire body of witness evidence before the Commission. All that is stated below is premised on the precise facts as set out and relied upon in the IRCR.
• Due to the length of this piece, I do not discuss the appropriateness of the eight match sanction. A good appraisal of this can be found here ( http://afootballreport.com/post/15301344153/flaws-and-consequences-the-curious-case-of-luis-suarez.)
• The assessment does quote the exact phrases used by the IRCR and as such may not be suitable for anyone who is easily offended by the use of abusive language.
• In the absence of direct corroborating evidence to back up Evra’s claim, unfortunately no one, including the Commission could conclude that Suarez “definitely” said the things Evra claimed. As such, the Commission believed Suarez “probably” said them. This assessment is to do with the process of how the IRCR came to its conclusion.

The length of this article makes it appropriate to set out an executive summary.

Executive Summary

I believe LFC would have focused on:

1. the fact that Evra only made reference to the precise number of times he claimed Suarez called him a negro four days after the event and did not appear to tell anyone that the abuse happened more than once, points to a basic inconsistency in Evra’s account. As such Evra’s story changes when interviewed by Canal+ and in the FA interviews. I think LFC would question why he did not make any reference to the multiple abuses he subsequently claimed up until that point. This points to numerous inconsistencies in Evra’s account of what happened which goes directly towards his credibility as a witness as well as the underlying substantive nature of his claims;
2. a complete lack of any direct evidence corroborating Evra’s claims that he was abused more than the one time that Suarez admits to;
3. the inconsistencies in Suarez’s account of events not being as serious, substantive and detrimental to his credibility specifically in relation to differences in the accounts between Dirk Kuyt and Damien Comolli; and
4. new evidence that could have been submitted to the Appeals Board to strengthen Suarez’s credibility by clarifying inconsistencies relied upon by the Commission.

Standard and Burden of Proof

This is set out in detail in paragraph 31 where the Commission sets out “on the balance of probabilities, is the account of Mr Era true and reliable?” and paragraph 74 onwards [1]. In effect, the Commission were asking “whose account was more probable” (paragraph 345).

[1]  Burden of proof: “It is not for Mr Suarez to satisfy the Commission that he did not breach the Rules. Rather, it is for the FA to satisfy us to the required standard that Mr Suarez did breach the Rules.” Standard of proof: The applicable standard of proof shall be the flexible civil standard of the balance of probability. The more serious the allegation, taking into account the nature of the Misconduct alleged and the context of the case, the greater the burden of evidencerequired to prove the matter.”

The Basics and Contested Statements

Suarez admitted in his witness statement that in response to Evra saying in Spanish “Don’t touch me South American”, he (Suarez) replied using the phrase “Por que, negro?” (translated as “why, black?”). Suarez explained that the term negro was not intended to be offensive or racially offensive but in fact conciliatory. This is the only time Suarez states that he uses the word “negro”. Evra claims that Suarez used the word seven times in total (six additional times to that which Suarez admits to saying). Paragraph 388 sets out what the IRCR believes probably occurred:

“(1) In response to Mr Evra’s question “Concha de tu hermana, porque me diste in golpe” (“Fucking hell, why did you kick me”), Mr Suarez said “Porque tu eres negro” (“Because you are black”).

(2) In response to Mr Evra’s comment “Habla otra vez asi, te voy a dar una porrada” (“say it to me again, I’m going to punch you”), Mr Suarez said “No hablo con los negros” (“I don’t speak to blacks”).

(3) In response to Mr Evra’s comment “Ahora te voy a dar realmente una porrada” (“okay, now I think I’m going to punch you”), Mr Suarez said “Dale, negro, negro, negro” (“okay, blackie, blackie, blackie).

(4) When the referee blew his whistle to stop the corner being taken, Mr Suarez used the word “negro” to Mr Evra.

(5) After the referee had spoken to the players for a second time, and Mr Evra had said that he did not want Mr Suarez to touch him, Mr Suarez said “Por que, negro?”. 

The disparity between both accounts is stark. Suarez only admits to saying point 5 [with negro meaning 'black', not as in 'a negro'] whilst Evra claims to have been racially abused six additional times. The rest of this assessment will establish how the IRCR concluded that based on the balance of probabilities test there was sufficient evidence to back Evra’s account of the events in part because of the inconsistencies in Suarez’s witness statement.

Evra’s post-match account inconsistency

I believe LFC would point to one overarching inconsistency that the IRCR completely failed to consider. Each step in the process needs to be discussed as it relates to the number of times Evra says Suarez called him a negro. As will be discussed below, Evra does not mention the fact that he was called a negro multiple times. At least nine people appear to confirm in witness statements that this is the case before he says to Canal+ that he was called negro more than 10 times. I believe LFC would argue as a general point before looking into the specific factors below that it would appear strange for Evra (who had purportedly been racially abused seven times) not to tell anyone it happened more than once until a press microphone appeared. Even then, he did not mention the specific instances of the claimed abuse and was inconsistent in the number of times the abuse occurred. It means that the first time Evra claimed and set out that he was abused multiple times by Suarez was at the earliest on the 20th of October in his first FA interview. Precisely four days after the match.

The circumstances begin when Evra states in paragraph 103 that “ref, he just called me a fucking black” (singular). The referee could not however corroborate that Evra said this. However, assuming he did, Evra only makes reference to Suarez “calling him a black” once. If this is a ‘one-off’ phrase because all the other accounts in relation to the abuse make reference to multiple abuse references, then Evra’s contention that there were multiple references to the word “negro” ought to be called into question. The point however is that, this account appears completely consistent with what all other Manchester United and referee/fourth official witness statements appear to say in the IRCR.

Next Evra tells Ryan Giggs that he has been called black (with again no reference to the number of times this occurred).  Giggs in paragraph 114 recounts that Evra said Suarez called him black (singular) and is silent about the number of times said. This suggests Evra did not tell him the number of times.

After coming into the dressing room at the end of the game Evra spoke to a number of United players. Antonio Valencia, Javier Hernandez, Nani and Anderson all provided witness statements and their evidence was accepted in full by LFC. All four players make similar claims that Suarez “would not talk to [Evra] because he was black”. There is no mention in any of the witness statements (as set out in the IRCR) of the number of times or the other types of context where Suarez allegedly abused Evra. In paragraph 125 of the IRCR Evra goes on to say that he also told other players that Suarez had said “I won’t talk to you because you are black” (single reference).

The IRCR raises no issues throughout their analysis about why Evra, after being called a negro numerous times, makes no reference of the fact to Giggs, his four teammates and the wider team in the dressing room.

Evra then tells Alex Ferguson in the dressing room that “Suarez called me a nigger” (single reference). Ferguson in his witness statement told the referee that “Evra has been called a nigger by one of the Liverpool players”. In paragraph 277 the IRCR noted that Ferguson “did not recall having said specifically that it was five times and thinks it unlikely he would have done so. Mr Evra did not mention… any specific number that he told Sir Alex at the time.”  Paragraph 130 clarifies that “Evra told the referee that Suarez called him a nigger” and paragraph 131 sets out in the referees witness statement that “Suarez had said to Evra “I don’t talk to you because you niggers”). There remains no reference to Suarez calling Evra a negro more than once.

The referee’s report sets out in paragraph 153 that when Mr Mariner (the referee) and the fourth official were discussing the issue with Evra and Ferguson, Evra stated Suarez said “I don’t talk to you because you niggers” (single reference).

Next Evra is interviewed on Canal+, which reveals a fundamental inconsistency that adversely affects Evra’s credibility generally. This is because he considers it appropriate to state something that according to the witness statement evidence, as set out in the IRCR, he has not stated to anyone else. He claimed he was abused by Suarez more than once. I believe LFC would be puzzled as to why he uses this opportunity to accuse Suarez of multiple abuses when he has had ample opportunity to voice his concerns to a whole raft of people, with it fresher in his mind, but did not.

I believe LFC would also challenge the “10+ times” inconsistency that was given three sentences worth of assessment (paragraph 281) by the IRCR. Specifically, the IRCR states that Comolli agreed with Evra’s contention that Suarez racially abusing more than ten times was a French ‘figure of speech’ when actually Comolli did not believe that was the case (paragraph 160). I consider LFC would argue strongly against the IRCR’s belief that “there is nothing in the Canal+ interview which materially undermines Evra’s evidence”. Based on the above, I believe LFC would argue that Evra’s account to Canal+ is inconsistent:

1. because it is inconsistent with what he has said (or rather not said) prior to giving the media interview; and
2. if he has been abused numerous times, he certainly needs to be more precise than 10+. LFC would also point out that the Commission came to the wrong conclusion that Comolli supported Evra’s “common figure of speech” explanation.

The only inconsistency in this chronology comes from Ray Haughan, the LFC administration manager who states that he heard Ferguson say “Suarez has called him.. a nigger five times” (paragraph 135). However, the witness statements of Evra, Ferguson, the referee and fourth official do not appear to mention the number of times of any claim. Ferguson explicitly states in paragraph 277 of the IRCR that he does not believe he mentioned the five times point. As such, a panel would on the balance of probabilities probably infer that such a comment was less likely to have occurred because of witness statements of the accusers who do not appear to mention this fact (as set out in the IRCR). This point would then rule out the corroboration conclusion used the IRCR at the end of paragraph 382.

Summary:  Evra claims to speak to the referee on the pitch, to Giggs on the pitch, to Valencia, Hernandez, Nani and Anderson in the changing room, to other United players and Ferguson in the changing room, to the referee and the fourth official in the referee’s room and at no time does he mention the crucial fact that he was abused more than once. He is actually consistent throughout in his single claim that Suarez said he would not talk to him because he was black.

I believe LFC would argue that all of the above is not just one inconsistency. Each time Evra does not make a reference to the number of times the word ‘negro’ was used undermines his later evidence. This makes his subsequent FA witness statements at odds with his statements at the precise time of the events. This is in fact highlighted in the IRCR when it states in paragraph 288 that at least in relation to the referee’s report:

“the referee’s report was made on the day of the match. It should, therefore, be given some weight as a contemporaneous record of what people were told had happened soon after the incident, rather than what they recalled at some later date.”

The Commission ignores its own directions to use the referee’s report as the basis for the number of times Evra said Suarez abused him. I believe LFC would argue that this would cast serious doubts as to the substantive nature of Evra’s claims and the consistency of Evra’s post-match explanations, and as such should lead to the conclusion that material inconsistencies appear in his account which severely damages his credibility.

Corroboration

As a general point which has been made on this site in a recent previous article, I believe LFC would stress, as they have done in their public statements, that Evra’s claims are not backed up with any direct corroborating evidence bar Suarez’s admission of using the word negro once.

The IRCR stresses in paragraphs 214 onwards, for example, that “this is not simply one person’s word against another” and that other evidence such as video footage, the evidence of others on the day and afterwards, documentation from the referee and the transcripts of interviews were all used. The LFC lawyer however stressed that the:

“…case turns very substantially on the evidence of the two main protagonists, that we should think very carefully before reaching a conclusion based solely on the word of the main protagonist for the FA, and that we should look at the other evidence, and see whether there is other evidence that corroborates Mr Evra’s story.”

I think that LFC would argue that the IRCR does not provide any direct corroborating evidence to back up Evra’s claims. Indeed, the IRCR states that in the absence of being able to identify such corroborating evidence they “asked [themselves] which account was more probable”. Based on the above arguments set out, I believe LFC’s aim would have been for the Appeal Board to significantly downgrade Evra’s credibility to demonstrate that his account was less probable.

Suarez Inconsistencies

If LFC had appealed the judgment, among other aspects of the IRCR, the club would have probably focused on at least three main grounds (there are of course others but these appear to be the most significant) that the IRCR used to discredit Suarez’s statements. The Commission believed that Suarez’s account of the incident was “flawed” and “profoundly undermined” the credibility of his evidence. LFC’s aim would be to rebuild Suarez’s credibility by attacking each one of the perceived Commission inconsistencies with the aim of showing that:

1. less weight should be attached to the conclusions reached in the IRCR; and/or
2. the conclusions reached by the Commission did not factor in, or at least discuss, other plausible alternatives.

Suarez and Comolli/Kuyt inconsistent recollections: Kuyt and Comolli provided witness statements based on their interactions with Suarez. Comolli spoke with Suarez in the aftermath of the Evra complaint being made and was the second LFC representative after Kenny Dalglish to speak to the referee about what Suarez had said in Spanish to him. In paragraph 290, he said that Suarez had said “porque tu es negro” and not what Suarez had said in his witness statement i.e. “por que, negro” [2]

In Kuyt’s witness statement, he explained how he spoke to Suarez in Dutch with the translation of their conversation recounting Suarez using the phrase “because you are black” (Paragraph 297). Both Kuyt and Comolli reference in their witness statements that something was ‘lost in translation’ in how the phrase was constructed. The question for the Commission to consider was whether this was a plausible explanation for two individuals who had spoken to Suarez about what was specifically said or whether this contradicted Suarez’s account.

LFC would have highlighted the below points to counter any perceived inconsistency:

• Comolli, who’s mother tongue is French, spoke to Suarez in Spanish, which he then had to retell to the referee in English. He even admits in his witness statement that “he assumed [Suarez] would have used the words”. Comolli may actually have been trying to make sense of Suarez’s statement to the referee rather than quote exactly what was said. This therefore, if anything, should not demonstrate the inconsistency of Suarez’s account but a problem with Comolli’s interpretation of what was said;
• It would be somewhat understandable if something got lost in the translation for Kuyt, having a conversation in Dutch with Suarez, about a specific and highly intricate Spanish phrase, and then trying to retell it in English through a witness statement; and
• That actually the IRCR ultimately backs Suarez account of the incident by setting out in paragraph 388 that “Mr Suarez said “Por que, negro?”. They believed Suarez did use that phrase and not the one that Comolli and Kuyt originally believed was said.

I believe LFC would highlight the fact that Suarez stayed consistent in what he claimed to have said to Evra, (por que, Negro?), yet because Kuyt and Comolli for differing reasons did not verify his precise Spanish phrase, this is held against Suarez as demonstrating inconsistency.

It would appear unfortunate that Spanish speaking players at LFC (Maxi, Lucas or Coates for example) were not asked to give witness statements to explain in Spanish what Suarez may have said to them. This could have given a more consistent and less likely to be ‘lost in translation’ approach. This is because the Spanish speaking players could have added additional precision to either back Suarez or give Kuyt and Comolli’s account further strength [3]

[2] The difference being as explained in the IRCR that “If Mr Suarez had said “Porque tu es negro”, then he would not be using “negro” as a noun to address Mr Evra, but as an adjective, meaning “Because you are black” paragraph 290.

[3]  This is discussed in the last section about new evidence to provide to an Appeals Board.

Acting in a conciliatory manner (paragraphs 253 onwards): For the one occasion that Suarez admitted to using the term “negro” he argued that it was said in a conciliatory context. The IRCR in paragraph 264 stated that “Suarez’s attitude and actions were the very antithesis of conciliation and friendliness”. The IRCR pointed to the video evidence demonstrating both players’ hostility “before, at the moment of, and after” Suarez’s admitted “negro” use. I believe LFC may have elaborated that:

1. within the bounds of how arguments play out there can be, and are, conciliatory moments used by those arguing to defuse acrimonious exchanges. LFC may have claimed that the IRCR’s perception that once an acrimonious exchange had begun, it remained acrimonious throughout is not so cut and dried. This would be of critical importance to Suarez and LFC because if this conciliatory approach was seen as more plausible, the context of Suarez using the word negro (based on the linguistic experts’ opinion) could have been viewed as non-abusive. The IRCR not only dismissed Suarez’s account of his conciliatory intention but used it to demonstrate that Suarez’s evidence was inconsistent and “simply, not credible”.
2. pictures and body language (without actual audible words) would have been difficult to demonstrate continued, complete and total hostility throughout the exchange. Without audible conversation evidence in the TV evidence, alternative scenarios to simple continuous hostility should have been explored by the IRCR. Indeed no body language experts were brought in to examine how the two players acted throughout the exchange. LFC may have considered using such experts to cast doubt over the IRCR insistence that the actions of the two players was only that of continued acrimony.

Pinching (paragraphs 245 onwards): Suarez stated in his witness statement that during the time of him pinching Evra he was trying to defuse the situation. Specifically:

“Evra did not back off and Dirk Kuyt was approaching us to stand between us. At this point I touched PE’s left arm in a pinching type of movement. This all happened very quickly. I was trying to defuse the situation and was trying to intimate to Evra that he was not untouchable by reference to his question about the foul. Under no circumstances was this action intended to be offensive and most certainly not racially offensive. It was not in any way a reference to the colour of PE’s skin.”

Under cross examination Suarez accepted that pinching was probably not defusing the situation.  The lawyer defending Suarez (Peter McCormick) put it down to “bad drafting” in the witness statement and furthermore admitted to the Commission in paragraph 250 that pinching was not the action of someone diffusing the situation. It appears Mr McCormick did not argue that it was not the actual pinch that Suarez’s witness statement was making explicit reference to when saying he was trying to defuse the situation with Evra. The IRCR inferred that this was a material inconsistency (in saying one thing but doing another) on the part of Suarez. I think LFC may have argued in any subsequent appeal that:

1. although the pinch may or may not be seen to rile or aggravate further, Suarez’s statement that he was trying to defuse the situation was more general in nature and was not in specific relation to the pinch; and/or
2. that the IRCR should not have inferred from his remark that this was anything close to a material inconsistency (albeit poor drafting on the part of the lawyer), when a number of apparent Evra inconsistencies are not addressed in any detail (e.g. Canal+ ten times issue above and Evra’s use of the word “nigger” being changed to “black”).

Inconsistency Summary: The reason these three issues are discussed in detail above is because the Commission uses these and other perceived inconsistencies to discredit Suarez’s account of what happened [4]. Specifically they make robust assessments that:

• “we find it remarkable that [Suarez] sought to advance a case that was so clearly inconsistent with any sensible appreciation of what happened” and
• “Mr Suarez’s evidence on these topics, which was shown to be flawed, profoundly undermined our confidence in the reliability of his evidence” (both in paragraph 357)

The way that the above inconsistencies can be countered by alternative arguments (with admittedly, varying degrees of strength) demonstrates that I believe LFC would have very strongly argued that such inconsistencies and conclusions were vastly overplayed by the IRCR in order to discredit Suarez and as a result favour Evra’s account.

^[4] There is one other relevant inconsistency issue relating to Suarez changing his account as to when he used the phrase negro, based on the video evidence he saw after he first made his FA interview statement. In the light of reports that Evra had up to three opportunities to see the video with the FA prior to making his statement, if true, should not therefore be used against Suarez as the basis for further IRCR conclusions of inconsistency.

Appeal Process

Whilst it has been reported that Suarez can only appeal against the level of the sanction and not the actual verdict [5] my initial reading of the FA Appeals Board Regulations is somewhat different [6]. Although the grounds for appeal may be deemed somewhat restrictive [7], regulation 3.3 states that among other things “The Appeal Board shall have power to: (1) allow or dismiss the appeal”. This would suggest that the Appeal Board could find in favour of an LFC appeal, thus rejecting the IRCR findings. Additionally, the regulations allow in exceptional circumstances for new information to be submitted. Such information could have included:

1. new language expert reports questioning the accuracy of Evra’s Spanish language claims [8] and body language experts to counter the continued hostility conclusion reached by the Commission;
2. evidence about Evra’s past credibility as a witness (which was not used by LFC’s lawyers as set out in paragraph 212);
3. witness statements of Maxi, Lucas or Coates as Spanish speaking players testifying about the exact phrase used by Suarez (if he spoke to them about it) to back up his version of what he admitted to saying and to reduce the Kuyt/Comolli IRCR inconsistency finding.

^[5] see http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/21/luis-suarez-liverpool-appeal-options

^[6] (see the document starting on page 425 “In the case of an appeal from a decision of a Regulatory Commission” http://www.thefa.com/thefa/~/media/Files/PDF/TheFA/FA%20Handbook%202010-11/FAHandbook-update-1011.ashx/FAHandbook-update-1011.pdf .

^[7] See regulation1.1.4-1.5  “The grounds of appeal, available to Participants and The Association, shall be that the body whose decision is appealed against: (1) misinterpreted or failed to comply with the rules or regulations relevant to its decision; and/or (2) came to a decision to which no reasonable such body could have come. 1.5 In addition: (1) Participants only, may appeal on the grounds that the penalty, award, order or sanction imposed is excessive;”

^[8] http://www.thisisanfield.com/2012/01/professor-in-hispanic-studies-dissects-the-fas-suarez-report/

Opinion, Speculation and Conclusion

LFC took under four days to consider a 115 page document and decide not to appeal. This suggests that not appealing was either a ‘policy decision’ taken from the top (in apparent conflict with the club’s previous vehement statements to the contrary) or tactical. It is a long shot to suggest however that LFC may not quite have exhausted their appeal grounds. This all depends on whether an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is still a possibility. The rationale being that LFC may take the ban (only four of the games being in the Premier League) but would argue to CAS (perhaps on the grounds of a lack of independence through the FA choosing the panel) that the evidence used in the IRCR needs to be considered afresh in order to partly or completely exonerate Suarez. It would appear however that this is unlikely to happen because:

1. there are explicit prohibitions against going to CAS in relation to regulatory commission procedures (3.2. of the FA Disciplinary Procedures Appeals);
2. the CAS code states that the club should have exhausted all internal remedies (i.e. to go to the FA Appeals Board first) which it appears they have not; and
3. this would embroil the club in an additional regulatory action (something they were presumably keen to avoid when they came to the initial decision not to appeal).

Regardless of whether this may happen or not the above assessment illustrates potential examples of where LFC may have argued against aspects of the IRCR. Although this now appears impossible, the analysis may be useful in demonstrating why Evra’s evidence was perhaps not as watertight as previously thought and that Suarez’s lack of credibility as a witness may have been overplayed.

Thanks to Hal Cohen and my father David for checking the substantive points (though responsibility for all the assessments made above are mine).

Daniel Geey advises clients in the football industry. Such guidance has included advice on the Fit and Proper Person Test, ownership requirements, parachute payments and the football creditors rule, disclosure obligations under the relevant football authority’s rules, conflicts of interest and third party player ownership contracts. Daniel has also provided guidance on UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations and how the rules may affect the future financial planning of football clubs. He has also given briefings and spoken at workshops and conferences on the interplay between Competition Law, Football and Broadcasting.

Daniel also edits a football law publication called On The Ball which can be accessed here and has a personal website called www.danielgeey.com where you can access for free all his published football law articles. Follow Daniel on twitter at www.twitter.com/footballlaw

All Spaniards are racist. And all Spanish-speaking South Americans are, too. Because every time they use their word for black, apparently they say “a negro”.

Racists!

(In case I need to explain, this relates to the fact that people cannot tell the difference between a word spelt the same, but meaning different things in different languages).

This is a story of hypocrisy on a grand scale; a story of unreliable witnesses and vested interests. It’s a story of semantics, and of glaring mistakes in reports. It’s a story of two great clubs getting caught up in a war of words, with precious little evidence to prove, or disprove any charges, but with a guilty verdict demanded by external parties. You may be getting sick of this story, but the man accused – Luis Suarez – continues to be vilified as a ‘racist’, when the panel that sentenced him said that he wasn’t.

The latest logic on Twitter from one very senior football writer was that [you] ‘black cunt’ may not be racist (“don’t know” claimed the Mirror’s Ollie Holt at the end of his message). But he also stated that what Luis Suarez said was racist and merited a very heavy ban.

I agree with Holt in that highly offensive terms like ‘coon’, ‘nigger’ and the like can seem more racist than merely mentioning a person’s colour in tandem with a sexual swearword; but either way, ‘you black cunt’ is clearly something I’d expect any black person to find offensive. Possibly very offensive, given the juxtaposition of the two words.

What I struggle with is how Holt simultaneously condemns Suarez for what he feels is a worse act than saying “you black cunt”, when all Suarez did was say the word ‘black’, in a manner consistent with his culture and language. Ill-advised? Yes. Racist? No.

Remember, Suarez, in a conversation started by an opponent in Spanish, said the Spanish word for black (negro), not the English word that is spelt the same (but pronounced very differently), and is therefore easy to confuse (if you can’t be bothered to differentiate). Anyone simply reading the word could get confused, and it doesn’t help that people, including some at the BBC, have added an erroneous ‘a’ before it.

Of course, Suarez hasn’t had biographies written by Mr Holt. John Terry, accused of calling Anton Ferdinand a “black cunt”, has. Maybe that’s his motivation for the now-deleted Tweet, although that’s just a guess on my part. He’s criticised Liverpool fans for getting behind ‘their’ player, but he’s getting behind ‘his’ man in Terry. Personally, I don’t think I’d be defending Suarez if he called Evra ‘a black cunt’ in his native tongue, with no cultural barriers involved, but as that didn’t happen, it’s a moot point. I can only apologise to Mr Holt if Liverpool fans have been sending him abusive Tweets, but in this particular instance it doesn’t seem that he has been fair.

(My club allegiance, of course, is well known, and clear from the header of this site; I still hope that my points are fair, even if coming from a Red corner.)

What would have happened if the English word for black was also ‘negro’ (pronounced neh-gro, rather than knee-grow?). Or if, in Spain, the word ‘black’ meant a “dated, often offensive” term for people of African descent; and an English player made the mistake of using it?

While Suarez was clearly wrong, under ‘our rules’, to use any mention of colour (in a way it’s not considered wrong in his native Uruguay), simply mentioning colour does not make you a racist. The report said Suarez is not a racist.

The logic of Holt’s Tweet was a bit like Martin Samuel’s assertion a couple of months back that Suarez was guilty because he was not caught by cameras (he’s sly, you see), and that Terry couldn’t have been guilty because his abuse was captured (‘no-one is that stupid’, was the crux of his argument). This is akin to saying that all bank robbers caught on CCTV are innocent, as no-one would be stupid enough to rob a bank given all the high-tech surveillance equipment, but anyone not caught on CCTV – you, me, bed-ridden grannies – is potentially guilty. It’s almost reminiscent of the Salem witch trials. How the hell do you win against that kind of thinking?

If you dare to defend Suarez, you too risk being labelled a racist, or accused of condoning racism. The Liverpool striker has been compared by many in the media with the vile killers of Stephen Lawrence, who were convicted with hard, physical evidence in a court of law, beyond all reasonable doubt.

Racism is so obviously wrong, but if you want to draw parallels between a man who, under provocation, said the word ‘black’ to a black man – without any other adjective or noun attached – and a bunch of youths who stabbed the life out of a man simply because of his skin colour, and laughed and gloated about it, then you’re off your head.

In society, we tend to hate public defenders and worship prosecutors. Defending a man’s honour is, apparently, akin to condoning that for which he is accused. This is a sad indictment of our society; as if everyone taken to trial is guilty and in need of ‘putting away’. (What of Atticus Finch?)

But we need strong, capable defenders, as part of our constitutional rights, for two main reasons. First, if someone who is guilty is poorly defended, there is the risk of a retrial being granted; a waste of time and money. It does not serve justice. Every human has the right to a fair trial, and being competently defended is part of that right.

But more importantly, we need defenders to protect the innocent, and the misunderstood. We need them to ask the right questions, and to cross-examine accusing witnesses (who may have their own agendas), so that justice is done.

We need them to question the evidence; provide expert witnesses; find fault in anything the prosecution says (because the prosecution’s job is to win cases, rather than guarantee that right triumphs over wrong). It the defence’s job to say ‘this doesn’t add up’. (And if your defence fails to do so, you are usually granted an appeal; not just on the sentence, as Suarez would have been entitled to had he tried to go down that dangerous route, but to the verdict of guilty or not guilty.)

When there’s a mountain of forensic evidence, dozens of reliable, neutral eye-witnesses, CCTV footage showing the crime take place, recordings of admitting to the offence, then defending someone can seem wrong; especially mass murderers, rapists and paedophiles. But for the sake of a fair trial, it needs to be done. If their guilt is that obvious, it should be easy to prove.

But what if there is no proper evidence with which to prosecute?

Remember the story of Colin Stagg, the man who ‘raped and killed Rachel Nickell’ on Wimbledon common in 1992? He was accused of it on the front page of various tabloid newspapers, and taken to trial by a police force convinced of his guilt (to the point where they ‘honey trapped’ him). He was ‘shifty’, and he was in the area. Never mind that there was no actual evidence. He fit the profile – in this case, more than just a saying – and that was enough.

It went to trial, but the case was thrown out, based on lack of evidence; but of course, this was a court of law, not a tribunal (where, it turns out, no real evidence is required). Still the hounding of Stagg continued, and on went the suspicion. Stagg’s life was ruined. For 16 years he lived with that stigma, until in 2008, with advances in forensic science isolating his DNA, Robert Napper pleaded guilty to Nickell’s manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Take a look at this man, too:

http://enemiesofreason.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/jefferies2.png

Looks a bit odd, doesn’t he? Certainly the type to be found guilty in a case of one man’s word against other. Had that been all that was required – if justice was meted out by a tribunal, rather than a court of law – he would have been found guilty of the murder of the Jo Yeates in Christmas 2010. Why?

Well, the far more plausible young Dutchman, Vincent Tabak, told police about his suspicions regarding Christopher Jefferies, and how the victim’s landlord was present and behaving oddly around the time of her murder. One word, against another; and yet, with the media coverage, you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who didn’t think Jefferies was behind it. Jefferies had no alibi, but then absence of an alibi does not equate to guilt.

Eventually, the clean-cut, professional Tabak confessed to the murder, but only after the oddball Jeffries had been persecuted to quite astounding levels. Jeffries had no history of murder, just as Suarez had no history of racism.

Now, these parallels are not drawn to prove that Patrice Evra is making up stories about Luis Suarez, or that there is no possible way Suarez could have used the Spanish term for what he admitted to saying once more frequently than that. They are just examples of what happens in the void of evidence, in the absence of proof. They show what happens when a media narrative takes hold, and nothing can shake it. Had Stagg or Jefferies only needed to be found guilty only on the balance of probabilities, based on words rather than proof, by a panel that wasn’t entirely without vested interests, they would have been sent to jail for the rest of their lives.

As noted by Rob Guttmann on The Anfield Wrap:

“It is obvious, that unless Luis Suarez’s accuser, Patrice Evra, could be shown unequivocally to have bare-faced lied, that there would be far worse repercussions for the sport and the FA if justice was miscarried against Evra rather than Suarez.”

It hits the nail on the head. Suarez had to prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt, in a situation where neither side could really prove anything, in a system where there was no scope to appeal the verdict, and where, in a draconian measure, appealing the sentence could see that sentence increased.

He admitted to saying something (possibly misinterpreted) once; he was sentenced for saying it seven times, without proper evidence.

Suarez, guilty or innocent, was always going to be the fall guy for much bigger issues. The FA’s spat with FIFA over racism made Suarez the bullet in this particular loaded gun. Others muddied the waters.

In November, Lord Ouseley threatened to quit his post unless the case was resolved in a satisfactory manner. We can all read between the lines there; never mind what the hearing produces, we need a verdict that sends a message. You might call it a case of searching for a scapegoat.

Lord Ouseley also happens to be on the board of the Manchester United Foundation, which some may see as a conflict of interest, just as Piara Powar, who also criticised Liverpool FC, has a similar role for a Chelsea FC foundation.

So, no pressure there, then, on the panel to convict. In a case of one man’s unreliable testimony against another’s.

First of all, at the start of the whole sorry affair, Evra accused Suarez of calling him ‘a nigger’. He later admitted that he was mistaken. He was mistaken.

It seems that he is allowed to be mistaken about that, and various other specifics. He is allowed to be mistaken about how many times Suarez used the word negro (Spanish for black, not ‘a negro’) – with five, seven and ten mentioned. He also confuses the terms used. Now, admittedly, it’s not easy to remember conversations that take place in the heat of an argument. But Suarez is condemned because he too could not accurately remember every last detail.

In paragraph 271 of the report, Patrice Evra stated that he doesn’t like to even pronounce the word “nigger”, let alone hear it. And yet several years ago he was quite happy to bandy the term about, in relation to impending opponent, Chelsea’s Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, according to a Youtube video that has been broadcast on Sky Sports News: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4_fQXwIV4E#t=0h35m20s

Perhaps Evra has grown up since 2004 – when aged 23 – although that also shows he was no kid at the time. (Although if something from Suarez’s past was discovered, you could bet your bottom dollar it would be exploited, even if he’s only 24 now.) I was told that there is also a video of Evra saying something similar at the 2010 World Cup; but of course, it’d be wrong to say so without proof, so I’ll withdraw that statement.

It doesn’t actually bother me if Evra uses a word relating to his race, as that’s his right, and an issue between him and others of the same race; but to claim that he doesn’t like to use that word can seem hollow, if that video is deemed legitimate.

And even though it doesn’t totally discredit Evra’s statement at 271, it does throw yet more doubt onto the trustworthiness of a man who had already been called ‘unreliable’ and ‘untrustworthy’ by the FA in a previous hearing (also involving Chelsea). As I noted in my last piece, if you’d already been found unreliable and untrustworthy by a court, your testimony would normally be treated as such next time around.

But are we supposed to believe the accuser, because he is ‘the victim’? That seems to be the theme.

It’s clear that Suarez’s testimony was not consistent. But it’s equally clear that Evra’s wasn’t, either. As such, the case should have been thrown out.

Of course, the three-man panel was also not completely without bias. Paul Goulding QC is a die-hard Spurs fan married to a Mancunian [edit: reportedly a City fan); possible conflicts of interest, if not overt. After all, it’s not like Spurs were fairly close to Liverpool in the hunt for Champions League spots when the report was drafted.

However, more concerning is Denis Smith – a man who made Darren Ferguson (ex-United player and son of Sir Alex) his captain at Wrexham. Smith was so close to Darren that he attended his wedding. He took several players on loan from his father’s club (Manchester United), in the way that Darren himself got to do as Preston boss. But most shockingly, in Smith’s own autobiography he claims to have “saved Sir Alex Ferguson’s job”.

So, no personal affiliations there. (This may be nothing, but imagine the objections if Kenny Dalglish's friend was on the panel?)

Then there’s David Gill.

“David Alan Gill (born 5 August 1957) is British football executive, currently Chief Executive of Manchester United F.C. and a board member of the Football Association.”

Is that not a conflict of interests? Again, it may be nothing, but see how a United fan would feel if it was Ian Ayre on the board instead, or how a Portsmouth fan would think if it was a Southampton suit. It doesn't help engender a sense of total neutrality, as you'd expect in legal issues.

Flawed

Remember, the FA is already viewed as a poor governing body. In an article linked to me via this open letter, the following was discovered:

“The government has given English football until the end of February to deliver plans to overhaul the way the game is governed, including a new licensing system for clubs and wholesale reform of the Football Association board, or face the prospect of legislation forcing it to do so.

In response to a recent parliamentary select committee report, the government has called for immediate reform of the FA board to make it "modern, accountable and representative", agreement on the new licensing system to be administered by the FA and overhaul of its antiquated decision-making structures. 

[recommendations:] 

• Reform the FA board to make it smaller, more representative, less beholden to vested interests and with more independent expertise

• Split the disciplinary process into a new, independent organisation” 

Then there’s this piece by the excellent John Sinnot, on the BBC website, with a quite incredible statistic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/16430580.stm

… Stuart Gilhooly, a leading football solicitor, described the 99.5% “conviction” rate as “extraordinary”. [As someone noted on TTT’s comments section, a dictatorship would be proud of that conviction record.]

With none of those 471 cases being overturned on appeal, he said the FA’s system needed urgent review.”

… Another sports lawyer, who preferred not be named, described the FA as “police, judge and jury all rolled into one”.”

The idea mooted in the piece that the FA don’t send people to jail is of course true; although they did sentence Luis Suarez to universal condemnation, which is more than an issue of ‘sporting merit’.

I had cause to email Mr Gilhooly over the Suarez matter. Here is what he told me on one newly discovered error in the report:

“Rob Johnson tweeted me earlier to say he could find no reference to the 7th mention of negro before paragraph 388(4) which is basically the decision. It says “when the referee blew the whistle to stop the corner being taken, Mr Suarez used the word “Negro” to Mr Evra”. This is the first reference that either of us can find to this particular incident.

The only ones referred to before this is the original five times in the goalmouth (including the three in a row) and the subsequent one that Suarez admitted to. This 7th time appears to come from nowhere and considering how comprehensive the recitation of facts “appears” to be, it’s seems to me to be a quite extraordinary omission.

You might like to check this yourself but neither myself, Rob or, it seems, [fellow football lawyer] Daniel Geey can see reference to this beforehand.”

Gilhooly then added in a further email:

“Paul, the origin in fact appears in paragraph 365. The commission saw Evra react badly to something Suarez said and then goes to the referee. They therefore deduced without allegation from Evra or anyone else that he must have said Negro at this point. No one else, including Evra, made such an allegation. It would appear that they were actually collecting references at this stage to throw at him. This is definitely the worst case of conjecture and supposition of the lot and falls below any known standard of proof, civil or otherwise.”

It may seem like a technicality, but it appears another example of the inconsistencies in the report and various testimonies.

Additional

Further to this, Dalglish was accused by Manchester United’s manager of defending Suarez even before the verdict. But what about Alex Ferguson all those years ago, after Peter Schmeichel was accused of racially abusing Ian Wright for a second time? Arsenal striker Wright made a public allegation in a newspaper. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/ferguson-stands-up-for-schmeichel-1280049.html (link courtesy of RAWK’s ‘Rushian’).

“Two years ago we were coaching in the townships of South Africa, and Peter was part of that. We have supporters everywhere in the world. We place great store in our reputation, so it’s a big slur on us.”

Never mind that Suarez grew up in a multi-racial society, and has a black grandfather. Schmeichel, a very white man, from a very white society, once visited South Africa. Well there you go! That was Ferguson’s defence, lest he get forgetful.

Liverpool also have supporters everywhere in the world. Was that able to be used as part of Suarez’s defence? Ferguson is entitled to his opinion, but is he entitled to taking the moral high ground given the above defence of a man accused of racism?

Concluding

Some of the points I’ve made will be less valid than others. But the job of a good defender is to look for inconsistencies, conflicts of interest, unreliable witnesses, and so on. I’m not a lawyer, but you don’t need to be to spot obvious flaws, just as you don’t need to be a goalkeeper or a manager to recognise when your goalie drops the ball into his own net.

That said, two sports lawyers to whom I have spoken have both claimed the report is massively flawed. Add that to the possibly biased nature of those involved, and the fact that the FA convict almost everyone and offer them no grounds to appeal the verdicts, suggests to me that a very serious issue has begun to seem dealt with by a kangaroo court.

Finally, a few questions/notes from members of this site:

1 – The refusal to allow Suarez to view video evidence and to insist on Suarez’s giving spoken evidence in person (whilst allowing Evra to give his by video link – exposing Suarez’s lack of dexterity with the English language)

2 – The conditions affecting an appeal, virtually eliminating any real point in making one, leading to the assumption of guilt

3 – The release of the verdict without the evidence

4 – The timing of the of the release of the report, early evening on New Year’s Eve

5 – Alleged refusal to accept evidence provided by LFC

6 – Verdict based on balance of probabilities rather than beyond a reasonable doubt, in such a clearly serious and rapidly escalating issue

7- Accepting corroborating testimony from Utd that was based on nothing more substantial than ‘this is what Patrice told us’.

8 – Refusal to acknowledge the linguistic differences in the Spanish word ‘negro’ and the English word for (a) negro.

9 – Branding Suarez’s evidence as unreliable when there were several inconsistencies in Evra’s too, and Evra’s past unreliability in front of the FA.

10- Not taking any action against Evra despite clear scope to do so, based on what he admitted to saying to Suarez, which contravened FA rules, and which preceded anything said by Suarez (and was therefore not a retaliation, which may have been viewed as justifiable). The FA maintain that “concha de tu hermana” is just a saying, when it means “your sister’s cunt”; and yet some of Suarez’s comments were translated literally, or poorly.

By Paul Tomkins.

Luis Suarez is still being labelled a ‘racist’, and Liverpool FC are being castigated for supporting said ‘racist’. Never mind that the FA’s findings stated, quite clearly, that they felt that he was not a racist.

And never mind that if those at the club truly believe their employee, colleague and friend to be innocent, they have every right to support him. So many in the media have shot down anyone who dare suggest Suarez is innocent, as if the guilty verdict was handed down by the Lord almighty.

To suggest that you cannot support a man who has been found guilty by one single, partially-independent panel (clearly under pressure to make an example of someone, if you read many of the editorials on the subject) based on the balance of probabilities is insane.

Just look at the amount of people found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of crimes due to police coercion in the 1970s, and go and tell their supporters that they were wrong to stand by their loved ones who were later fully exonerated. Whatever the crime, you have a right to stand by someone you feel incorrectly treated, and not be seen as condoning what it was they were accused of. Normally, you’d be able to make a full appeal. All the reporting on this issue states that only the sentence could have been appealed.

Yes, people support the genuinely guilty, too, out of blind faith, but Suarez is not a man found definitely guilty by the highest courts in the land, after all appeals and judicial reviews failed. He was found probably guilty by three men in room.

Probably. (This isn’t even a Carlsberg ad; and anyone who’s drunk that lager will know that it’s almost certainly not the best in the world.)

Admittedly, hardly anyone comes out of the report well: Suarez, Evra, Liverpool (and its sloppy legal representative), and the panel themselves, who, despite writing 115 pages, left far too many holes, and took far too many leaps of logic.

Anyone reading it looking to find pantomime villain Suarez guilty will see their confirmation bias duly satisfied (just as officials ‘saw’ Joey Barton’s headbutt the other day, or why Craig Bellamy should have been booked for being forehead-prodded by Clint Dempsey),  but anyone looking to find faults – as people should, with every judicial process – will discover plenty of disconcerting inconsistencies.

(More on the inconsistencies here, from Stuart Gilhooly, who “is the solicitor for the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland and was also recently named Journalist of Year at the Irish Magazine Awards.”).

That these faults are only being found by Liverpool fans is not the point; they exist, no matter who points them out. (It’s probably the case that only Liverpool fans have the motivation to question the inconsistencies. Daniel Geey, a football lawyer, has promised to share his view on this site as to the reasons why Liverpool would have had a case, had the process allowed a proper appeal.)

Suarez was not found guilty due to the weight of evidence proving it beyond a doubt; he was found guilty on the balance of probabilities, based on a verbal exchange that lacked even one first-hand witness. The only witnesses to be called heard no more than what the participants had later told them; less ‘he said, she said’ and more ‘he told so-and-so, she told so-and-so’.

The video evidence proved nothing as to what was said. And even what was claimed to have been said had to be deconstructed by linguistics experts, with others noting that the report’s findings – as to what was said – were incompatible with the Spanish language, as used by anyone who speaks it.

(See this, for more on the language issue.)

In cases where it’s essentially one man’s word against another – including what the two parties told people after the event – miscarriages of justice are rife. Look at the Innocence Project, which, coincidentally, is thankfully freeing lots of black men imprisoned decades ago because someone said, often with all honesty, “it was him!”. I’ve seen women who swore on oath that Man X raped them apologise 20 years later, when DNA proved it was Man Y. Memory is an unreliable witness.

These were cases where juries were supposed to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt; not just say “hmm, it’s probable”. Given the seriousness of the accusations aimed at Suarez, “it’s probable” doesn’t seem fair at all.

In cases built on words only, you have to try and discredit the witness who makes the accusation. What else is there to go on? Otherwise false claims can be made without compunction.

If the ‘victim’ stands up to scrutiny, all well and good. I’m not sure that in this case, either party seems particularly reliable; either because they are wilfully twisting the facts, or struggling to remember them. And whilst having a story straight suggests truth telling, it can also be reminiscent of practiced liars; just as having a confused story can simply mean that you were confused.

In this case, I’d say that it’s possible that Suarez is guilty as charged.  With so little evidence, anything can seem possible; it’s how conspiracy theories get their oxygen, after all.

I’d also say that it’s possible that he’s not guilty; not least given the fact that his accuser was criticised for giving unreliable evidence in a previous FA hearing (after the Stamford Bridge fracas). After all, if you lied or misled in court, your testimony at subsequent trials should be worthless.

Again, I’m not saying that Evra was lying this time. I’m just saying that I don’t see enough evidence to saddle Suarez with a conviction that, even though the wording claimed otherwise, would doubtless lead to “RACIST!” headlines.

Suarez did admit to using the word ‘negro’ (pronounced neg-gro) once; plenty of media outlets have since claimed that he admitted to using the far more racially loaded term, negro (as in knee-grow) on seven occasions. That he made this admission is not true.

Suarez’s defence was that in Uruguay, such language is commonplace, and not deemed offensive; our culture loads the word with meanings that do not exist in his country, where racial integration has been rife for much longer.

Just because an adjective was used in an argument, it does not mean the adjective was laden with hatred; presumably why Suarez was found guilty of ‘referencing colour’, rather than being a racist – although the guilty verdict means he’ll just be labelled a racist anyway.

If offence was taken by Evra, it’s fair to understand why; however, he initially admitted that he took offence due to thinking that Suarez meant ‘nigger’, which he later admitted was wrong. So there’s a lot of misunderstanding inherent in the case.

What I would question is Evra admitting to the use of “your sister’s cunt” to Suarez to initiate the exchanges, and getting away with it scot-free. That falls foul of the FA’s rules, but nothing appears to have been done. And when only one side gets punished, it smacks of bias.

I also think that, by choosing to speak in Spanish, Evra in essence dictated the linguistic nuances; this may have been on English soil, but it was not an English dispute. After many years here, Evra presumably speaks good English; yet he chose to insult Suarez in Spanish.

Apparently, in Spanish, “your sister’s cunt”, means something less incendiary, like “fucking hell”. But while Suarez was held to literal translations of what he said, Evra was not. It was ‘just a saying’. Also, the idea that Evra was in deep shock from a slight kick on the knee, just seconds before he goaded the Liverpool fans in the Main Stand by kissing his badge on the touchline, is hard to reconcile.

Again, the report correctly notes that Evra was even getting into a lather over the coin toss. He does genuinely appear like someone who – with a history of spats in his career, including one at Stamford Bridge and one with France in the World Cup – was looking for a fight; and equally, there’s no denying that Suarez is someone who could get involved in a contretemps on a deserted island. Both of them are ‘winners’ who get carried away, to put it politely.

For the misjudged, if not malignant, use of the Spanish word for ‘black’, which also just happens to be spelt the same way as something deemed very offensive in the West, Suarez could have been given a small ban and an explanation about how it could easily be misconstrued in our culture. (Just as we hope to see Brits abroad not being taken to task over foreign customs they are not aware of; despite ‘ignorance of the law being no defence’, we don’t like to have to stick to their rules, wherever ‘over there’ may be, if we think them unfair to our ‘superior’ understanding of the world, but Brits are good at saying “but this is our country!” when a foreigner falls foul of the law.)

Perhaps Suarez and Liverpool should have admitted to the guilt of cultural ignorance at the start. An apology for the misunderstanding may have helped defuse the situation, although even the report is not full of every last fact and detail, so it’s hard to second-guess Liverpool FC’s full reasoning. One can only assume that the club wanted to help Suarez defend his honour, and feel that vital things were missed.

Unfortunately, and perhaps outrageously given the seriousness of the charge, even though Suarez was only found guilty on the balance of probabilities – which, by its definition, suggests that there’s a good chance (up to 49%) that even those finding him guilty could concede that he is innocent – he could not appeal the guilty verdict; just the length of the ban. What kind of system allows for no appeal on a verdict, apart from witch trials where drowning is involved?

And appeal the length of a ban to the FA, and they’re likely to accuse you of being ‘frivolous’, even though they’ll take advantage of Uefa laws that don’t work in the same way.

(The FA had a right to appeal Wayne Rooney’s ban, but what does it say for their policy of a decision being final? Just because Uefa allow it, it still undermines the notion of one decision being the end to the matter.)

Liverpool, and Suarez, were not in a position to appeal, due to the nature of the beast; and therefore the player was seen as ‘admitting’ to the charges, rather than simply seeing no way to overturn them.

Had it been Glen Johnson who was on the receiving end of the same wording from Javier Hernandez, for example, I’d probably be outraged in the manner that a lot of United fans and neutrals are over Suarez (although neutrals can still hate other clubs, and other clubs’ players). But my outrage wouldn’t make me right, in terms of knowing what actually happened.

(A note: Johnson, who should know more than almost anyone else, stands by Suarez. People keep using him as an example of someone who should have been appalled at Suarez’s behaviour, or using him as an example of how Liverpool fans would feel if the shoe was on the other foot. But his support of Suarez is being glossed over.)

As a fan of fairness and justice – I follow true crime issues obsessively – I’d also hope that any accused was not universally condemned and vitriolically vilified merely because he or she was ‘probably’ guilty. I’d expect such serious charges to come with a criteria of ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’. This is not a case of whether or not a player meant to injure an opponent, which does not carry the same stigma.

Like other Liverpool fans, I don’t want to be seen to defending a ‘racist’. We would not support someone who admitted to, or was caught on tape, being racist. (As an aside, I posted this first in TTT’s debate section, to check that the site’s multicultural readership was behind publication. Subscribers of all races felt that it should indeed be made public.)

However, like most other Liverpool fans who have closely followed the whole sorry saga, I am yet to see the evidence in a case where there was no smoking gun; no forensic evidence; no independent witnesses (or indeed witnesses beyond those given second-hand information); and no conclusive video footage, beyond showing that an argument taking place (which we already knew).

Just stories, possibly told by truthful folks, possibly told by liars, or possibly told by those with all-too-common cases of unreliable memory.

To conclude: to me, it’s clearly probable that Luis Suarez did not say the word ‘negro’ (neg-gro) more than once, and that no ill meaning was intended. It’s probable, because he admitted to a single use of the word, when he could have denied it and gotten away with it. It’s probable, because he himself is from a black background, and – logically, at least – that makes it less likely, if not impossible, that he’d be racially offensive.

His innocence is probable, because no-one heard what he is alleged to have said, and no recording device, visual or audio, picked it up – and the chances of that happening, while not impossible, are less likely than if it was definitely said. (Some of the things you do might not get captured by a dozen cameras; but none of the things you don’t do can end up on tape.)

If it was any friend or relation of yours who was found guilty of a charge based on the balance of probabilities, and it was splashed all over the papers in the most damming manner, I’d expect you’d want better, too. Let’s kick racism out of the game, and out of society – but let’s have standards of evidence, so that the innocent, or misunderstood, aren’t caught in the crossfire.

“It is key to note that Patrice Evra himself in his written statement in this case said ‘I don’t think that Luis Suarez is racist’.  The FA in their opening remarks accepted that Luis Suarez was not racist.”

So asserted Liverpool Football Club.

It seems to me that one of the toughest things to prove in life is that you’re not a racist. So keen are we to clamp down on the vile nature of racism, we don’t really give a comeback to those accused of it; it’s an accusation that sticks. If it’s just your word against your accuser’s, what can you do? How do you prove you didn’t say something? – because the absence of evidence means nothing.

Most of the things we say are not captured; although, with loads of cameras on us, the chances should be higher, and the absence of evidence should present some doubt. If you were taking part in an event filmed by a dozen cameras for 90 minutes, then if 10 accusations were made, there’s a chance that they’d be picked up. None were on video (and I know a source who has forensically studied the footage at the FA).

Claims that you have black friends just sound hollow and laughable, although presumably racists don’t have many black friends. Personally, I thought that the emergence of the fact, via the club’s official statement, that Luis Suarez’s grandfather was black was quite profound, because it means he has close black ancestors (rather than many millennia ago for the majority of the rest of us). That made me think it less likely that he’d racially abuse someone, seeing as he shares that race in his DNA.

It doesn’t make it impossible, of course, but as those genes were passed down, to become ‘part’ of his DNA if not as clearly reflected in his skin colour, then I’d expect that to make him more sensitive to the issue. Say that you were basing the judgement on the benefit of doubt; then it would add at least some uncertainty to the equation, just as there’d be uncertainty that a ‘decent’ chance of being captured on camera failed. He has lots of black friends and a black grandparent; not exactly the profile for a racist, even if, in Suarez’s case, they are dismissed as mere excuses.

More uncertainty would arise with the complexity of the word allegedly used: ‘negrito’.

By all accounts – from many who live in South America, and several linguistics experts I’ve read on the issue – negrita/negrito doesn’t necessarily mean black in Uruguay. It’s now often used for black and white people alike; unlike the n-word, which is offensive when used in hate, but is also ironically used by black people ‘reclaiming’ it. But the n-word definitely refers to the colour of skin.

Whereas negrito, in Uruguay, does not; not definitively, according to many sources. It is often used to mean friend, or lover, or mate, with the skin colour irrelevant. We can use ‘mate’ even when insulting someone, either just as a placeholder or perhaps in irony (‘alright, pal?’), when of course it’s not being friendly. But if the word ‘negrito’ has a blurred meaning, then it’s hard to say with certainty that it was meant with racial intent, or just ‘mate’.

That the conversation took place in Spanish, and not English, also affects the issue. Yes, it was on English soil, so people will say that the meaning of the word in our language only applies here. Ignorance of the law is no defence, but as the conversation took place in Spanish, then surely the nuances in Spanish (and in particular, the Uruguayan dialect) have to come into play. Or so I’d have thought. The reason Suarez admitted to saying it, and has been surprised at the verdict, was because he felt it wasn’t used with racial overtones. I’m sure Liverpool thought they’d proved that.

Then there’s Evra. He’s alleged to have insulted Suarez via his place of birth, and said that the referee was only booking him because he was black; I’m not sure of the truth in this, although the Liverpool statement suggests he admitted to insulting behaviour towards Suarez. Even before the start of the match he was ranting and raving, and at one point provocatively kissed his badge to a section of Liverpool fans. He looked like someone eager to start a fight.

He’s been involved in previous racist claims, although none were made directly by him. However, one of the FA panels said he gave evidence that was ‘exaggerated and unreliable’.

Does that mean that he’s doing the same this time? No. However, does it lead to some doubt?

Yes.

Just as Suarez appears to have been found guilty on the basis of past misdemeanours (my assumption, but it seems that there’s a witch hunt), Evra has apparently let himself down at a previous hearing.

However, while Suarez has ‘previous’ for lots of things, there have been no accusations of racism. Again, absence of evidence doesn’t mean absence of an offence, but there’s no other evidence in existence that suggests he’s a racist. And in this case, just one man’s word against another’s, and a word with many meanings.

Okay, so there’s doubt based on the lack of video/audio evidence, with ‘he said, she said’ being largely unreliable in the justice system (not that this was as thorough as a full judicial process). Doubt based on Suarez’s happily mingling with people of all races and his mixed-race (grand)parentage. There’s also some doubt about Evra’s credibility, even if that doesn’t prove he was misleading this time. There’s a little more doubt, as Suarez has no history of this offence; repeat offenders are more likely to continue their recidivist ways.

That’s a lot of doubt. Enough to gain the benefit?

However, Suarez didn’t have to be proven guilty “beyond the benefit of doubt”. This was not English justice, but a sports tribunal. He did not get given the chance to defend himself to a jury of his peers. He faced a small panel, that was not fully independent or without its agendas (such as taking on Sepp Blatter on the issue of racism, and perhaps using this to prove a point). The fact that this was such a tricky issue perhaps made the procedure insufficient; at least John Terry gets to go through a more established process.

People are wrongly convicted of things all the time, especially with only verbal accusations. Cases are frequently overturned; initial guilty verdicts can be appealed, and are often successful.

But once tarnished, it sticks.

Chairman of anti-racism group Kick It Out Herman Ouseley said:

“This charge is not saying Luis Suarez is a racist. It’s saying, on this occasion, he used racist language. It doesn’t make him a bad guy – he needs to learn what is acceptable.”

That almost suggests that he could have inadvertently used racist language; he needs to learn that words have different meanings in England.

But still the headlines scream “RACIST”. The player will now be hounded, wherever he goes.

[Postscript: Sorry if this is garbled, and full of typos, on what is a serious and sensitive issue. It was written in difficult personal circumstances, and late at night. Hopefully the whole Suarez/Evra ruling will be further explained in the coming days, so we at least know if there's any independent evidence. Club allegiances need to be put aside over issues like racism, but the fact remains that Liverpool fans have many doubts about what might have been a kangaroo court, and trial by media. If my bias has clouded my judgement, I apologise, but I genuinely want to see people to only be proved guilty of serious offences beyond a reasonable doubt.]

There have been various times in my life when football results have taken a backseat; misunderstanding or misquoting Bill Shankly’s ironic words about ‘life and death’ is common, but when all is said and done, it’s unlikely that many people maintain the exact same interest in their team’s results, irrespective of the slings and arrows of daily life.

Of course, most fans at some point experience something like the current Blackburn situation, where supporters are too dissatisfied and angry to enjoy the games. They even ended up booing their own goalscorer because he celebrated with the much-derided manager.

While I find this last particular act bizarre in the extreme, I have to admit to taking no great pleasure when Liverpool won the occasional game last winter under Roy Hodgson, because many fans, perhaps unfairly (but often accurately) feel that, once past the tipping point, the win will condemn the team to several defeats in the next handful of games. At that stage, victory feels less like papering over the cracks and more like Sellotaping the San Andreas fault during an earthquake.

But there are the times when, for personal reasons, football gets put into perspective. Of course, part of the great joy of football is getting it out of perspective.

It is, of course, just a game. But if anyone tells you this in one of those moments when it feels like so much more, it’s almost a punchable offence. It’s a game that we build up into a way of life, and it’s something that greatly enhances our existence. The more emphasis we choose  to put on the game – or find ourselves unable to resist putting on the game – the better or worse each win or defeat feels.

But sometimes it just doesn’t matter; of course, we know that normal service will be resumed somewhere down the line, but for me, maybe this weekend, and a few thereafter, just won’t seem as important.

We’ve been there before, as a club; particularly in 1989. Bigger things happen, and football seems irrelevant … but then, over time, its importance creeps back up to normal.

From a personal point of view, the home game against Manchester United in November 2002 was watched in something of a torpor, as I was moving out of the marital home and losing unrestricted access to my son. I therefore wasn’t as devastated as I would otherwise have been when Jerzy Dudek let Diego Forlan’s shot roll through his legs, but it did seem in keeping with the day.

As I write this, I am sat close to my dad’s bed, as he nears the end of his long, ‘good’ (his words) life. He has been on the Liverpool Care Pathway (a national system of terminal illness care, created in Liverpool) for several days now, and the doctor said his breathing, and the fact that he’s been in a coma for a few days, suggests that he probably won’t make it through the weekend.

It’s incredible for me to think that when he was diagnosed with cancer, and given six months to live, Liverpool were fighting for the title under Rafa Benítez in the first half of 2009, with Alonso, Torres and Mascherano key players. If it hasn’t gone so well for the Reds since then, my dad has done miraculously to last this long, and only really saw the illness take hold this summer (and become serious this autumn).

On the back of the door hangs the Aston Villa scarf that was part of a gift package from John Henry, organised when he discovered that my dad was seriously ill. The Liverpool owner phoned immediately to ask after him, and asked me which team my dad supported; I said ‘none’ – he was a lover of football, more than any one team – but I mentioned that his dad played for Aston Villa, albeit around 100 years ago. Soon after John Henry’s call, a big box of Villa merchandise arrived, with a card signed by Randy Lerner. The hat and scarf were used frequently last month, when wheeling dad around the block for some fresh air.

And so Liverpool face Villa this weekend; to me, at least, it seems fitting, even if, to my dad, there is less of a connection to Liverpool FC. Having said that, just as parents switch allegiance to the club their sons end up playing for (with blood the only thing thicker than football water), mine developed a soft spot for Liverpool, by proxy; particularly when writing about the club became my living. When my dad couldn’t even remember the most basic things, he could still name current footballers, as well as those from the distant past.

(I went to see the comedian, and Liverpool fan, Dave Gorman last month. When I told my dad who I’d just seen, he said that ‘he must be getting on a bit now’, for some reason thinking I meant the old Irish full-back, who played for Brentford and guested for Liverpool and Manchester United during the war. “Is he still playing?”, my dad asked. A quick Wiki later, and, “No dad, he died at the age of 67, in 1978…”. My dad also asked if he could phone a friend of his. “He died 25 years ago, Dad” … “Well, phone him anyway.” But then the dementia, or possibly the cancer spreading to the brain, made him paranoid and angry, and that was hard to witness; he thought we were all trying to poison him and wouldn’t drink any water.)

[I wrote this last Friday, when we were told that he wouldn't last the weekend. On Sunday morning we were told that he wouldn't last until the afternoon. But he lasted all through the Villa game – which we had on in the background – and all the next night, and as I write this edit on Tuesday lunchtime, he still continues to defy the odds.]

So I’ve drafted this, and saved it to the site. When the time comes, and the end has arrived, I’ll click ‘publish’ and take my leave for a while (though the site continue as normal over the festive period, with Chris Rowland at the helm). Just as football won’t be the same in the coming weeks, nor will Christmas. But life goes on, and what is happening to my dad, although tough to endure, is no tragedy; at 82, he enjoyed his fair share of time on this earth, unlike many of the seriously and terminally ill children at Post Pals.

I’ll be devastated, of course, but I’ll always have my dad to thank for introducing me to the game I love. If, due to lack of parental indoctrination, I was free to choose the club I supported, I was never going to be free from football itself; it was in the blood. He bought me many things over the years, but football was his greatest gift. Playing, watching, and now writing about the sport has defined my life. Thanks dad.

First of all, a quick reminder that gift subscriptions to this site can be purchased here.

Reviews by Paul Tomkins, Chris Rowland and Andrew Beasley

Liverpool: The Complete Record, by Gudmundur Magnusson and Arnie Baldursson

Written by the two Icelandic Reds who run the magnificent www.lfchistory.net, this nicely presented hardback book is a veritable treasure trove of stories and statistics. Every season since 1892 is covered in Part One (line-ups, league table, goals, etc, plus a write-up), and Part Two looks at the records of the players. An invaluable resource.

(PT)

“Pepe – My Autobiography”, by Pepe Reina

Obviously a must-have for all Reds is the new biography from Pepe Reina; one of the must thoughtful, likable players in the club’s recent history. We’ve not had a chance to read it yet – but it’s on our own Christmas lists! (hint hint, Santa)

(PT)

“EPIC SWINDLE – 44 months with a pair of cowboys”, by Brian Reade

This book by the Mirror columnist and author of ’43 Years with the Same Bird’ is an eye-opening account of the nightmare of the Tom Hicks and George Gillett era. The title is a quote from Tom Hicks just after being shafted in court, and as the sub-title suggests, Reade is no fan of theirs – he’s a lifelong Red, why would he be?

The book contains some startling quotes and records of behind-the-scenes conversations, and there are quotes-a-plenty from the owners to make your eyes shrivel in disbelief (including the toe-curling ‘our captain is a faggot?’ episode).

We may know the ending, but like ‘Titanic’ it does not prevent that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as this wretched story unfolds. If you can tolerate the glibness that marks the book’s tone, this is a book all Reds fans should read – not least as a reminder of where we were oh-so-recently. It’s cause to be thankful.

(CR)

“MY LIVERPOOL HOME”, by Kenny Dalglish

Kenny’s account of his close and longstanding relationship with the city of Liverpool and LFC begins with his trial under Shankly in 1966 and ends in 2010 with Rafa’s appointment of him as Academy Ambassador. [A new version includes the 2010-11 season]

It takes in all his playing and management career (first time around) at Anfield and includes a few interesting insights into how the manager/board relationship used to work.

Like most football autobiographies, it’s full of dressing-room argot and not especially-clever nicknames, but Kenny’s passion for Liverpool Football Club and his concept of its standards and expectations shines through. He describes the Kop as ‘my favourite sight in football’, and makes the unexpected observation that whilst he was living the Kopites’ dream out there on the pitch, he envied them for living his dream: ‘If only I could have joined them to share the atmosphere, jokes, stories and camaraderie. Just once.’

Heysel and Hillsborough are covered in some depth, and Kenny admits ‘Hillsborough changed me.’

(CR)

“Joe Fagan: Reluctant Champion: The Authorised Biography”, by Mark Platt and Andrew Fagan

One of the problems I had when writing ‘Dynasty’ was the lack of quality material on Joe Fagan’s time at the helm. His tenure was brief, but remarkable – but until now, not well documented. That’s changed now, with this excellent tome.

He didn’t have time to make too many changes to Bob Paisley’s incredible side, but he did manage to take it to new heights in 1984, before the tragedy of Heysel in 1985. Two years of high drama. The true treasure of the book is the raft of Joe’s football/technical diaries that were discovered by his grandson, to provide genuine insight into the workings at the club. A great man and a great book.

(PT)

Now a book that’s not been released yet, but is due out in December:

On the March with Kenny’s Army is a new, independently published book that tells how Liverpool FC overcame tragedy and despair to win the League and FA Cup Double – 1985/86
 
It’s priced £13.99 and will be officially launched at the Static Gallery in Liverpool city centre on Thursday 1 December 7-9pm.
 
Authors: Gary Shaw & Mike Nevin

Publication Date: Thursday 1st December

Format: Paperback RRP: £13.99

ISBN: 978-0-9557283-2-7
 

(PT)

Then, of course, there are two of our own books. “Pay As You Play: The True Price of Success in the Premier League Era” (Reviews can be read at www.transferpriceindex.com)

And

“From Where I Was Standing: A Liverpool Supporter’s View of the Heysel Stadium Tragedy”

(Although it recently sold out its two print runs, it will remain available on Kindle)

We’d also recommend downloading The Anfield Wrap podcasts as a matter of course, and subscribing to Well Red Magazine.

Finally, TTT regular Andrew Beasley recently wrote a review of Simon Kuper’s new book, having spoken to the Dutch author.

“The Football Men: Up Close with the Giants of the Modern Game”

“I do believe that you can access truths about the game by speaking to Arsène Wenger, if he feels like telling you. I don’t believe you can access them by speaking to Wayne Rooney.” So says Simon Kuper, in the introduction to his new book, entitled [outside of the UK] – deep breath – ‘Soccer Men: Profiles of the Rogues, Geniuses, and Neurotics Who Dominate the World’s Most Popular Sport’, which features profiles and interviews with a variety of the game’s greats, both past and present.

The above quote is the key theme of the book; players have very little, if anything, of interest to say.

“Twitter demonstrates the problem,” Kuper told me in an interview to promote the book. “Players are constantly getting into trouble for things they have tweeted. In many countries, players have less freedom of speech now than they would have had in the Soviet Union. Players learn over time to say nothing.”
Indeed, there’s an amusing line in the profile of Freddy Adu (the only American player featured in the book) where Kuper states that the fourteen year old ‘spoke with more articulacy than I have heard from any adult England player’. But why are the English superstars so tongue-tied?

“I think it’s partly because they get teased by their peers if they sound too clever-clever or too middle-class. Their goal when speaking in interviews is to say nothing, because any interesting thoughts are liable to get them into trouble, and so inarticulacy becomes a sort of self-defence”.

The book is inspired by ‘The Football Man’, a 1968 book by Arthur Hopcraft, which Kuper admitted is “a little bit dated now”. But he felt the idea behind that book is still valid: “Portraying a series of individuals and thinking about what they have in common”.

It’s interesting then to see that the people in this book don’t actually have all that much in common. Besides being good at football and very career orientated (“In the end almost everyone in football is out for themselves” Kuper told me), there isn’t all that much that binds them based on the information that is presented here.

A chapter on a boasting Edgar Davids is followed directly by one about a shy Rivaldo; the likes of Jari Litamen and Thierry Henry are shown as being football obsessed, whilst it barely seems to register with Johnny Rep and Bernd Holzenbein (in a joint chapter) that they played in the World Cup final at all. The World Cup final!

The literary pretensions of the players themselves are entertainingly mocked in a chapter that looks at the autobiographies of England’s ‘golden generation’. Kuper confessed that no-one had ever asked him to write one, and I suspect few players will be asking him in future, if they have read this section of the book at least.

“I’d vaguely thought I’d be interested in doing it for Dennis Bergkamp but that won’t ever happen” Kuper revealed, and I wonder if, as the author of Soccernomics, he feels a connection with the Dutch legend who (as the book reveals) was teased as the dressing-room geek at Inter Milan.

Aside from looking at the players themselves, the book also covers the football cultures of different countries, which proves interesting. For example, we learn about the Argentine concept of the pibe, and that Dutch children often follow players rather than teams.

“If you grew up in Holland, you were taught an extreme interest in the actual game itself and in its tactics. So you learned to appreciate, for example, Bergkamp or Van Basten no matter which club they played for”. As an English fan of football, with all of its tribal rivalries and hostilities, this certainly seems an alien concept to me.

As the profiles date from 1997 to the present, it’s interesting to see which predictions Kuper made in his original articles came to fruition and which did not. I won’t spoil it here, but the author is honest enough to admit when he was off the mark.

It’s not just players in Kuper’s sights though; there are profiles of managers and ‘some other soccer men’ (as Part III of the book is titled).

Amongst these, there’s an interesting comparison between Glenn Hoddle and Tony Blair, from when one was England manager and the other the Prime Minister (the two most difficult jobs in the UK according to most of the natives). But who is soccer’s Barack Obama?

“Lilian Thuram is a very politically engaged man. They have something of the same aura: tall cerebral men who exude a great calm”. There you have it; look out Nicolas Sarkozy!

There’s also a fascinating portrait of Billy Beane, star of the book (and now film) ‘Moneyball’ who, it is revealed, is a soccer obsessive. With his analytical mind, I wonder if Beane could cross the divide and become a success in soccer. Kuper thinks so:

“I suspect it’s going to happen one day, that he’s going to make the leap to soccer, just because he has such passion for it and spends so much time thinking about it. Not soon, but one day”.

Whilst I very much enjoyed the book, as a fan who struggles to get tickets to see his own favoured team play, it does sometimes seem that Kuper is complaining a little too much about a life spent trying to interview players whilst going to every game imaginable, including the World Cup final itself in 2010. Want to swap places Simon?

But that’s a minor gripe. The book is very readable, obviously well written and researched, and you learn some incredible and occasionally startling facts about the stars of the game.

If nothing else, the book is worth reading to find out which World Cup winner showed his testicles to Luis Chilavert. You’re wondering now, aren’t you?

It’s funny how some of the more lauded older generation of football writers can be so wrong about modern Liverpool FC. Sometimes it takes supporting a club, and following its fortunes closely, to know what you’re talking about. Dipping in and out when it suits tells you little, no matter how much you dress up your conclusions in fancy prose.

The amount of articles that James Lawton of the Independent has written laying the boot into Rafa Benítez (who fans, he says, were wrong to admire) and praising Roy Hodgson (who was ‘mugged’ by said fans) has just increased by one, from an already large number. Now, Dalglish joins Benítez as a man to whose failings were are blind, just as we were blind to the greatness of Hodgson.

Look at this garbage (I won’t link to the article, on principle):

“Unfortunately, the unsayable is beginning to be said because for all the signings, all the old excitement of a club on the move, the now unavoidable truth is that the records of Kenny Dalglish and Roy Hodgson are not exactly separated by a chasm that might readily explain the joy with which one was received and the contempt that went into the dispatching of the other.”

Okay, a bold statement. The evidence?

“Hodgson averaged 1.25 points over 20 Premier League games, Dalglish is running at 1.80 in 29. In all competitions, Hodgson won 13, drew 9, lost 9 with a winning percentage of 0.42. Dalglish emerges only a little to the good with figures of managed 37, won 19, drew 9, lost 9 and a percentage at 0.51.”

Okay, the win percentage. The difference between 42% and 51% in all competitions is actually quite a chasm; the former is ‘Souness ballpark’ and the latter is the figure mustered by Evans and Houllier (independent of each other).

It’s funny, but the same people that slated Hodgson’s predecessor over his league record (which was 56% of games won), now throw fairly meaningless cup games into the mix; as if reaching the Europa League semi-final in Benítez’s final season was ever used by these same critics in his defence. Of course it wasn’t. When Benítez was in charge, it was the league, the league, and only the league as far as his snipers were concerned (given that his team made it to four European semis in six seasons). Now Hodgson winning a few games against substandard Euro opposition is grouped in with dire Premier League form, to skew the meaning.

But of course, while league records compare like with like, the cups do no such thing. Hodgson had one domestic cup tie (100% of his domestic cup ties!) at home, against one of the worst teams in all four divisions, which he lost in spectacular fashion; plus the early stages of the Europa League. Dalglish had the latter stages of the Europa League (better opposition, if hardly the elite), and has  faced only away fixtures (100%!) in the domestic cups, including trips to Old Trafford and the Britannia.

Even an imbecile can spot the difference in the challenges faced. Early stages of a competition vs later stages? Home games against rubbish teams vs away games against strong teams?

But what about the points per game? The difference between 1.25 and 1.80 is the difference between 47.5 and 68.4 over the course of a 38 game season.

Or, the difference between Champions League football and scraping out of a relegation battle by seven points.

If that isn’t a chasm, what is? As this site’s Andrew Beasley pointed out, Dalglish could lose the next TWELVE league games and still have a better points per game than Hodgson.

Yes, there were different circumstances, but again, Lawton chooses to ignore context (the kind of opposition faced) when it suits him.

Dalglish has had more money to spend, but virtually no Gerrard, and lost Torres, even though he finally started scoring again (three in five) after the prehistoric football served up by the former Fulham manager; Hodgson had Gerrard and Torres fit every game, even if his use of the latter was embarrassing.

People like Lawton will not stop until they’ve re-written history. He didn’t have to watch Liverpool every week under Hodgson, although anyone could have read or listened to the press conferences, in which bizarre excuses were trotted out, and an air of defeatism thrown over us like a chloroform blanket.

Hodgson is very good at managing small expectations; awful at dealing with any more than that. Throughout his career in major leagues, no matter whether he’s at a big club or a small one, he wins around 33% of league matches; great for a small club, terrible for a big one.

It wasn’t the Liverpool fans who mugged Hodgson; it was Hodgson and his cronies who mugged us.

By Mark Wilson

A Jakarta-based journalist and editor. Author of Without a Dream in Our Hearts (http://withoutadreaminourhearts.blogspot.com), a blog about supporting Manchester City in the 21^st century.

It was a sorry sight. The players of the Indonesian national soccer team trudged off the pitch at the national stadium, and it wasn’t even full time yet. With fans venting their anger at the team’s performance by launching fireworks onto the pitch, match officials postponed the game while the air cleared, prolonging the embarrassment of a team that was about to lose 2-0 to Bahrain in a vital qualifying match for the 2014 World Cup. Outplayed, out-fought and out-thought by a country smaller than the Indonesian island of Bali, with a population of 1.2 million. I must admit, the future looked bleak for Indonesian football.

But not all is as it seems. Every weekend, on the fields surrounding the national stadium in Central Jakarta, a ray of sunlight may just be cutting through that ominous outlook. Here, a small part of the future of Indonesian soccer is taking shape – and Liverpool Football Club is behind it. For this is the home of Liverpool FC’s International Academy & Soccer Schools in Indonesia (LFCIAss). If Chris Wren, Commissioner of the Academy, has his way, then this Academy is going to do much for the future of Indonesian soccer.

“Liverpool FC is the first foreign club to set down a real footprint in this country,” says Wren, enthusiastic and passionate about the Academy’s vision. “The Club is committed to quality, sustainable development in Indonesia. Everything done here is in line with the standards of Liverpool Football Club. What you see here is a direct collaboration between the club, the Indonesian Liverpool supporters club [Big Reds] and this academy and soccer schools programme.”

LFCIAss informally opened its doors in June this year following a two-year relationship that tapped into the local expertise, credibility and networks of the British Chamber of Commerce. Today, LFCIAss in Jakarta welcomes 120 soccer-loving children onto its pitches every week on a pay-as-you-play basis, ranging between the ages of 6-17.

The soccer school in Jakarta is just the beginning. The Academy is looking to expand across the country. Beginning in February next year, there are plans to open one additional facility each month taking in the centres of Bandung, Solo, Medan, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Palembang, Riau, Makassar, Kalimantan and Papua. Then starting in March, the LFCIAss will be holding talent scouting competitions on a road show basis in six cities across the country, assessing around 3,000 kids every weekend. At the end of this process, the best 15 kids will be chosen to go to Liverpool to for a first-hand experience of the Academy.

This is one side of the Academy’s operations: developing talent and then channelling that talent to Liverpool. But that’s only half the story. The Academy also intends to give something back to Indonesian football.

“It would be fantastic to have a child accepted by Liverpool Football Club, but the LFCIAss model in Indonesia will make a significant contribution to raising the overall standards of youth soccer in this country,” says Wren, as a ball rattles the back of the net on the training pitch nearby.

“We’re keen to reach as many kids as possible. We’re trying to give them the Liverpool experience and we don’t want a situation where any child is excluded from that.”

Coach Paul Barratt in action

The Academy appears to be moving toward that target at pace. A Liverpool FC-branded pan-national youth league is in the offing, and the participating teams will come from 3,000 Indonesian football schools already active. The hope is that the youth league becomes a talent pool for the domestic football scene and beyond. To add to this, the Academy will be organising mobile football camps, engaging kids in towns across the country.

It doesn’t stop there. The plans extend to integrating Indonesian-centric health awareness sessions into football training. The academy also wants to organise a set of best practice sessions with Indonesian clubs, bringing over staff from the LFC Academy and transferring knowledge to clubs in Indonesia in terms of football administration. And if all that wasn’t enough, by the end of 2013 an Academy home will have been completed, which will include an educational centre offering scholarships for children to aspire to careers embracing all aspects of soccer.

Paul Barratt is the man responsible for implementing the soccer dimension of this vision. Barratt, 24, from Warrington, is himself a product of the LFC Academy. Aside from overseeing training sessions, he’s also responsible for identifying and training-up Indonesian coaches to the standards of LFC.

“Training-up Indonesian coaches is vital in sustaining the development of the game in this country. You need a group of people who can teach the kids the basics of the game,” says Barratt, who came through LFC’s ranks under the tenures of Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez.

I ask Barratt whether there is any sign of an Indonesian Steven Gerrard coming through the ranks. Not yet, it seems, but Barratt is keen to stress the potential of what he sees on the training pitch. “Many of these kids have the right skills but they lack a good understanding of the game. We focus a lot on movement. It’s really important for kids to understand space on a football field, how to move into it, how to exploit it. Emphasis is also placed on controlling the ball.”

This is a view that is echoed by parent Ardie, 33, from Central Jakarta. Ardie has one son attending the school, aged 14 years old. “My son really enjoys the coaching here. Having foreign coaches helps because they bring better drills. At other schools, it’s about endurance and physicality. Here it’s about technique and the game itself.”

Syam Satrio, 43, from South Jakarta, has a 13 year-old child attending the Academy. He thinks the training has improved his son to the point where he’s now the captain of his team at school. “My son really hopes that one day he be able to play in Europe, but if not, perhaps for one of Jakarta’s clubs or even the Indonesian under-23 team!”

It’s clear that there is so much enthusiasm for football in Indonesia. That’s why it’s such a travesty that the country continues to languish at 140^th in the world rankings. But for the game to improve domestically, the answers may well lie in places like this Academy, which imbue both children and coaches with the right approach to the game.

And Wren himself is at pains to emphasise the long term view: “People expect results quickly, but development takes time. The important thing is we’re identifying the kids early on, so our results will only begin to take shape in around seven years’ time. We have to be patient. The process can be fast-tracked by corporate Indonesia coming on board early for the journey with us.”

If the academy continues to move forward, then one senses that this patience will surely begin to reap dividends for all concerned.