Luis Suárez

[Rigadon]

I'd still have him. There's no way I'm castigating him for what he's done. It hurts us but love is unconditional. Some of you have no heart or are too selfish.

Problem is - he doesn't care about Liverpool. He's immature, selfish and wants out. It's difficult to support a player that doesn't want to be at Liverpool.

[Vermilion]

He is a man with a problem, a problem that hurts him and his loved ones more than anyone.

It manifests itself only on specific occassions, and is no danger to the public whatsoever.

Reading some of the stuff i have, you would think he was No1 on the fbi list of perverts and child murderers, although tbf, they wouldn't get so much air time.

WTF happened to reason and persepective!?

It's sad.

[rodo]

in 2 minds one part of me just wants shut too much baggage will it happen again club bigger than the player etc but then its not like we will just go and buy another luis suarez

[EwarWoo]

spot on this

Geez, a common sense article on the issue, they're rare.

[dom9]

Activate Troll Nige

Did some of you miss this post?

[G]

spot on this

Social media is not always the best guide to public opinion, but it has been revealing on the Luis Suarez issue. Inevitably there are some saying he should be hung, drawn and quartered, and others arguing he has been framed. Many of the extreme judgements are partisan but even among ‘neutrals’ there is a wide divergence of opinion.


What is telling is how many humorous responses there are. Various themed menus, lots of references to Jaws and Hannibal Lecter and so on. Among the most notable is a photo of Giorgio Chiellini, the assaulted player, posing with a woman who is pretending to bite him. Chiellini is smiling. Another photo shows the Brazilian striker Fred pretending to chew on a team-mate.



Then there is the video of Will Ferrell’s appearance at a US supporters’ event. He is introduced by Sunil Gulati, the president of the USSF, as a new player. Ferrell promises, to huge cheers, he will “bite every German player” if he has to, to win the game.

What is the relevance of all this? Imagine if Suarez had broken Chiellini’s leg with a wild tackle or shattered his eye socket with an elbow. How many jokes do you think there would be on Twitter then?



What Suarez did was unacceptable, gruesome and deserves punishment. But to a lot of people it is also rather funny, which is why Fifa’s sentence is disproportionate. Suarez obviously has a problem that manifests itself, when he is frustrated that events are not going his way, by biting. But for this he needs treatment from whichever mental health specialist is deemed appropriate, not one of the severest bans in the history of the game.

Part of the reaction is shaped by our long-standing and entirely understandable cultural horror of cannibalism. Suarez, though, was not actually trying to “eat” Chiellini any more than he was trying to “eat” Otman Bakkal or Branislav Ivanovic. He was trying to hurt them in a fit of temper, but not in a particularly brutal manner. Roy Keane’s assault on Alf Inge-Haaland shows what can happen when a player deliberately aims to injure another.



Of all the many tweets received following an article in this space on the subject yesterday, the most powerful was from a parks player who had been forced to undergo nine operations on his knee after suffering a two-footed tackle. His view was he would much rather have been bitten, and a three-match ban was sufficient.



Given Suarez’s repeated offences and the stage, I would have imposed the standard three-match ban for violent behaviour and added a ban from all football activities for the rest of the World Cup.

How much more imaginative and proportionate it would have been to make this a suspended sentence conditional on his undergoing treatment, to be activated if Suarez reoffended or refused medical help.

Some sense and perspective. The ban is woefully disproportionate.

Where's the article from?

[Shaggy]

It's here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/luis-suarez-ban-twitter-sees-absurd-side-of-overthetop-punishment-for-liverpool-and-uruguay-striker-9566743.html

[G]

It's here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...r-9566743.html

[Kenneth]

A comment from the guardian

The online casino 888poker have terminated their relationship with Luis Suárez, no longer willing to take a gamble on the striker who they signed up as an ambassador.

A good move. The unease and revulsion I felt when Suarez bit into Chiellini wasn't caused by the act the itself, but rather the idea that Suarez represented an upstanding institution such as the online casino 888poker. It was the first thing I thought of: Suarez is the embodiment of 888poker! He is 888poker made organic, they are one and the same. Often, when watching football, I would see a bucktoothed one armed bandit cutting in from the right, not a mere footballer. Like most people, it is simply impossible for me to think of Luis Suarez without thinking 888poker, so effective is modern day brand ambassadorsip and endorsment. How could I, in good faith, now squander my meagre income on this offshore, tax avoiding, gambling addication promoting, relationship and societal breakdown causing 'entertainment' portal? I couldn't. But now they've distanced themselves from Luis Suarez I'll be back to pissing my money away on their allegedly loaded games this very morning.
Well played, suits at 888poker!

[Pablo]

888poker have just played this for as much publicity as possible. They've done a good job of it to be fair.

[BobTheCharmer]

Let it go lads. The ban may or may not be unfair. That's life. Lets just take it on the chin and move forwards. Trawling the net looking for snippets or articles to back up the claims of being hard done is tedious. Luis Suarez bought this all on himself. He is the cunt in this. You only have to see the reaction back in Uruguay to see why he doesn't appear sincere when he eventually apologises, they all indulge him and almost encourage the feeling that he has been picked on for no reason.

Personally I think he should be sold, the clubs good name means something to me, but I don't see any problem in fans wanting him to stay, he's great, he really is, but come on, he has let himself and us down again. It's not good enough. His actions have probably destroyed any chance of fighting for the title next season, that's desperately sad.

[rodo]

classic quote from the bottom of that article
ROYSTER 32 minutes ago
And suppose the Italian were to get AIDs as a result of the Suarez bite? would the punishment seem over the top then?

[Kenneth]

Let it go lads. The ban may or may not be unfair. That's life. Lets just take it on the chin and move forwards. Trawling the net looking for snippets or articles to back up the claims of being hard done is tedious. Luis Suarez bought this all on himself. He is the cunt in this. You only have to see the reaction back in Uruguay to see why he doesn't appear sincere when he eventually apologises, they all indulge him and almost encourage the feeling that he has been picked on for no reason.

Personally I think he should be sold, the clubs good name means something to me, but I don't see any problem in fans wanting him to stay, he's great, he really is, but come on, he has let himself and us down again. It's not good enough. His actions have probably destroyed any chance of fighting for the title next season, that's desperately sad.

I said the same last time.

[dom9]

classic quote from the bottom of that article
ROYSTER 32 minutes ago
And suppose the Italian were to get AIDs as a result of the Suarez bite? would the punishment seem over the top then?

[Shaggy]

http://seeingredonline.com/im-sorry-but-its-time-to-go/

I’M SORRY, BUT IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO JUST **** OFF

Yes, you read that correctly, and yes, I know it’ll come as a shock to some that I’ve come out with a statement like this, but I can assure you I’ve not taken this position without a great deal of thought. I’ve considered it carefully, and enough is enough. You can’t keep defending actions like these and hoping that things will change. They won’t. I think we can all agree there’s clear proof of that, and Tuesday night was yet another in a long line of perfect examples. It’ll just keep happening again and again unless we address it correctly, right here, right now. And I’m not naive. I know that many will disagree with me, and that some will of course be uncomfortable with what I’m proposing, but I genuinely think it’s for the best if we put everyone into a giant lead safe, seal it forever, and drop it to the bottom of the ****ing ocean.

What? Okay, a couple of giant safes. You’re right – one won’t be enough.

Ah, you thought I was talking about Luis Suarez, didn’t you? Nah. Do you need me to? I mean, I could, it’s just, well…I really don’t ****ing care. Honestly, I really don’t. I think I did last time, and now…nothing. And this apparently makes me a bad person. I’m not sure whether I’ve tried to care and failed or if it’s just because I’m all Suarez’d out from last year, but whatever the reason I’m fairly certain that, ultimately, I just don’t give a shiny, silver ****e anymore. He’s a flawed genius, that’s all there is to it, and he isn’t the first and won’t be the last. Personally, I’m far more concerned with the idea that I SHOULD care, like those I’d like to shuttle off this ****ing planet pretend to.* There’s this idea that I should be outraged, like Sherrie Hewson was on Loose Women, and I should be expressing this outrage through any form of social media I can get my grubby little mitts on, like Frankie Cocozza. I could draw up my own ‘tolerance guide’ and stick to it when it suits me – perhaps having Kung Fu kicks to the chest at one end and bites to the shoulder at the other – then go spitting mental on Twitter and Facebook, even if I’m older than Joseph Minala’s Rubik’s Cube.

Truth is, this biting nonsense, or ‘Bitegate’ if you’re a virgin, isn’t even the worst thing to have happened at this World Cup. I’ve been more appalled at having my eyes raped by the sight of that globular bollock Adrian Chiles’ feet, or by Martin O’Neill modelling your dad’s summerwear collection, with his reflective legs buckled together as if concealing the world’s biggest predatory lob-on. Or by how many times I’ve had my mind fisted to the tune of Andy ‘Yep’ Townsend saying “Yep” a thousand times per “Yep” game, or by Clarke ‘Countdown Cock’ Carlisle telling us how Colombia’s Jackson Martinez has struggled to get into the ****ing Ecuador side. I’ve listened to the co-commentary equivalent of an afternoon tour of Dignitas courtesy of Phil Neville, a grown man with highlights. I’ve seen a picture of Sol Campbell inexplicably dressed like Larry Grayson’s audition for Benidorm, and I’ve self-harmed at the notion that somebody would actually employ Gibraltar’s Danny Higginbotham to torture me through my telly.

Nevertheless, I would happily sit through it all again. Every single moment, every last ill-informed sodding utterance, every glance at a fat man’s bunions, than have to listen to the cretinous ****ing judgement of the great British public, and the bombastic edification suggested by punditry nimrods like this stupid cunt:

“I’m sorry, but they’ve got to throw him in jail and lock him up forever.”
- Danny Mills, a glistening ****case of some prestige

Is this how I’m supposed to react? Like Danny Mills? Really? He bit someone on the shoulder, you absolute ***** pipe, he didn’t bugger a Royal. But this is just one example of the hyperbolic and, in some instances, hilariously hypocritical reactions on show. Elsewhere, we’ve got Stan ‘I only hit her once’ Collymore wading in to suggest counselling, and Piers ‘My good friend the dead girl’s phone hacker’ Morgan calling Suarez an “utter lunatic” shortly before asking his “mate” Mike Tyson, a man who served a conviction for rape in 1992, for his views on the matter. Alan Shearer wants Suarez “hammered”, which is presumably how Neil Lennon felt after Shearer ‘accidentally’ tried to remove his face with a boot some years ago. An incident he was never punished for, by the way. Andy Murray can’t believe it, Bruce Springsteen can’t either, and pundits at the BBC are so outraged they forgot their employer practically gave the world’s biggest paedo a backstage pass to the knickers of every child in the studio for 30 years. But we can all jump on the moral ****ing bandwagon when it suits us, can’t we? Just make sure your opinion includes a bite pun.

Sadly, perspective seems to be lost at the drop of a hat, but I’ll see if I can offer some now. This is a sport, and it’s governed by a set of rules which are put in place for the betterment of that sport. When a player steps out of the tunnel and out onto the pitch they’re to obey those rules. If a player breaks those rules then they should be punished. So, quite clearly and quite rightly, Luis Suarez should be punished. For violent conduct. Because that’s what it is and nothing more. Just like a kick is. Or a punch is. Or a headbutt is. Or an unexpected and potentially life threatening forearm to the back of the head is (no matter how much you want to pretend like it didn’t happen, Wayne). A bite on the shoulder, though ****ing stupid, isn’t worse than any of these. It’s violent conduct, should be treated as such, and that’s that. FIFA, UEFA, our FA, none of them should get to make up the rules as they go along, and certainly not because of public pressure or rival supporter reaction, but that’s what appears to be happening. If it isn’t, then how come we’ve all been asking how long his ban’s likely to be? Shouldn’t we know? Isn’t it in those rules you’ve written?

And it really doesn’t matter what your opinion is, or how much you dislike Luis Suarez or even LIKE him for that matter. It’s **** all to do with you, and it SHOULD be **** all to do with you. Your outrage is merely a byproduct of an occurrence, and let’s face it – it’s also complete bollocks. The only thing you’re outraged about is the possibility of Luis Suarez dicking your defence like it’s the last ***** on Merseyside again next season. All your cry-arsing about deportation, expulsion or, if you’re a dribbling, egg-headed simpleton, jail time, is as transparent as it is pointless. It’s a sportsman, breaking a rule, in a sport. Are you really suggesting that Luis Suarez, his wife and two young children are uprooted from their home and removed from the country…because of a bite? A little one on someone’s shoulder? Because if you are, please, get in the ****ing safe.

“I don’t even follow football, but if this Suarez has bitten someone he should be deported.”
- Adolf Hitler

And so to the ruination of this piece in the form of today’s judgement. Four months. Four ****ing months. A real landmark ruling by FIFA as nothing so stupid has ever been seen before. Honestly, watch the end of Transformers, that’s where I got the idea from. They drop Megatron into the ocean. Celebrations all round, no doubt, as the villain gets his comeuppance once more. Facebook and Twitter rejoice, memes everywhere, hilarious puns abound. He’s not even allowed to train. Not even allowed to stay in the same hotel. We could disguise the safes as Nandos or The Pound Shop and pretend there’s some kind of special event they simply can’t miss going on inside, like a Jordan book signing. I mean, they’d turn up to the unveiling of a ****ing queef if they thought that useless shag epidemic was there, too. And she’s bound to have one ready (a book, not a queef), what with it being six months and a shiny new ******* since the last. I hope I haven’t offended Sherrie Hewson with this. Four months. No precedent. Four months, from thin air. £65,000 fine. Still, the great British public, they’ll be happy. The great British public, who sit up on Henman Hill / Murray’s ***** / Judy’s Quim, or whatever it’s ****ing called now, with their painted faces and Union Jack bowler hats, waving little plastic flags. Dressed as knights. Wearing chainmail. They’ll be happy. The nasty man got his punishment. K-Swiss. Outrageous. God save the Queen.

We’d probably need some sort of financial backing to pay for the safe(s), so I was thinking Kickstarter. Even if they escaped – loads of water. Big safe, made of lead, dickheads inside, ocean. Trust me, it’s a winner…

* Initial idea, abandoned because of spiraling costs.