Luis Suárez

[Sarb]

He is a slimey little manc loving scum as far as I am concerned. One piece of common sense reporting in his entire career does not win him round me I am afraid.

You're a hard man to please Tee

[Arn]

Hired or Bribed ?

[Tee]

You're a hard man to please Tee

:d True fax though, I have to turn over when he is on that paper show on Sundays. Hate the little gimp.

[Fredo]

I drew a parallel in a point not too dissimilar to yours.

Yes remember it was you now - you said "dickhead".

Don't think he's anything like Barton, who is an attention seeking **** most times. Luis just pushes his limits (and his opponent's) every time he plays. Makes him do silly things such as this.

[dom9]

Yes remember it was you now - you said "dickhead".

Don't think he's anything like Barton, who is an attention seeking **** most times. Luis just pushes his limits (and his opponent's) every time he plays. Makes him do silly things such as this.

I disagree. I think it is the red mist. An uncontrollable reaction.

Barton is also an attention seeking troll on Twitter and his website, but that's not the reason he headbutts opponents or stubbed a cigar out in the eye of a team mate.

[Pablo]

We clearly "bought" him to write that article IMO.

Oh dear Arn Even for you this is lame

[Arn]

I know its your opinion and all. But that is totally baseless. A positive article is just a different view on the subject. You cant be calling peoples journolistic integrity into question.

In fact I see you saying people take bribes a lot. Why is that? Anything that goes against us is corrupt, and anything positive for us is 'bought'

If one out of five journalist care about integrity then I would be surprised. They write the way the paper want you to write IMO. If you don't then you get sacked and replaced.

If a PR company want a paper to write a positive article about something then they will do it without any doubt at all.

[Fredo]

I disagree. I think it is the red mist. An uncontrollable reaction.

Barton is also an attention seeking troll on Twitter and his website, but that's not the reason he headbutts opponents or stubbed a cigar out in the eye of a team mate.

Barton's got malicious intent most times. Winds people up. Don't think Luis has any such intentions apart from winning.

[Arn]

They use it all the time in politics, business etc so why not in football?

[Fredo]

So we should sack Luis, Arn?

[G]

He is a slimey little manc loving scum as far as I am concerned. One piece of common sense reporting in his entire career does not win him round me I am afraid.

And lets not forget him wearing an alice band for a while

[Tee]

And lets not forget him wearing an alice band for a while

He looked such a cunt didnt he, FFS.

[Rich]

If one out of five journalist care about integrity then I would be surprised. They write the way the paper want you to write IMO. If you don't then you get sacked and replaced.

If a PR company want a paper to write a positive article about something then they will do it without any doubt at all.

Worked on many publications Arn?

To say Holt has been hired by LFC to spin some positive news coverage our way is, frankly, ridiculous.

He might not even agree with what he's written but that'll be down to him wanting to stand apart from the general consensus on the bite.

It will have absolutely nothing to do with someone at LFC paying him.

[Arn]

So we should sack Luis, Arn?

Not sack him, We wouldn't get any money if we did that.

We should sell him IF he do something like this again. I know that I said that we should sell him in the summer but I have changed my mind about that.

I'm allowed to do that?

[Sarb]

Reality bites: Why football's response to Suarez demonstrates the double standards at the heart of the game
24 Apr 2013 10:42
Darren Lewis argues that everyone from fans to the FA are guilty


Luis Suarez: something to get your teeth into

So, Luis Suarez is fighting the footballing law.

It will be interesting to see whether the law will win or whether Liverpool's Uruguayan bad boy will come out on top.

On Monday, our game's rulers charged the Liverpool striker with violent conduct over his bizarre biting attack on Branislav Ivanovic.

They could have left it there and given themselves a bit of wriggle room over just how hard they would push the independent panel sitting in judgement for Suarez to be hit.

Instead the FA played to the gallery, making clear on their website their view that the normal three-match ban - for what would have been a red card offence had referee Kevin Friend seen it on Sunday - would be insufficient .

You could understand their decision to talk tough. The incident was indeed appalling. It had also created such a stir that it was dominating the news agenda never mind the sport.

Opinion was being sought by figures as high up as the Prime Minister who surely had better things to do but was instead being drawn into the seemingly endless debate within football about grown men unable to control themselves.

The point is, the anger (and the hypocrisy, but we'll get to that in a bit) had reached fever pitch by the time the FA had cleared their collective throat and tapped on their microphone. So they had to talk tough - and they did.

They ended up, however, painting themselves into a corner. And in challenging their bid to hit him with more than three games, Suarez has seen an opportunity .

You see, if the FA push for - say - another two games to make it a five-match ban then it is clear that they do indeed see violent conduct as being worse than insulting another human being on the basis of the colour of his skin.

Chelsea captain John Terry received four matches for his slur aimed at QPR's Anton Ferdinand. Suarez got eight for abusing Patrice Evra but that punishment, in the eyes of the FA's independent panel, was for repeated breaches.


There is still no clear punishment for racial abuse in English football. The FA have talked tough about bringing one in but, so far, nothing.

Say what you like about UEFA (and most of us have) but there does appear to be a new will to deal with racism these days after decades of turning a blind eye to the issue and slapping clubs on the wrist with paltry fines.

These days clubs are being made to play games behind closed doors. Anti-racism organisations are privately delighted at the will within UEFA to consign their abysmal previous attempts at dealing with the problem to the past.

And the ten-game suspension - announced recently by the organisation - for players racially abusing their fellow professionals pulled the rug completely from under the carpet of our own Football Association.

Because what it did was draw a line in the sand and declare the offence, in the eyes of European Football's rulers, to be the lowest of the low.

Yet in this country we clearly don't think so.

All this talk about Suarez reaching a new low on Sunday is nonsense. Outside of breaking a fellow professional's legs, nothing he does on the field of play will be worse than the abuse he aimed at Evra on that fateful October afternoon.

Not spitting, not biting. Nothing.

And in indicating a readiness to appease those blithely calling for a six, eight, ten game ban, the FA are not only making policy on the hoof once more. They are also leaving themselves wide open, yet again, to the charge that they do not take racism seriously enough.

Of course Suarez should not be indulged, appeased or pandered to. As good a player as he is, he is not above the law and should indeed have the book thrown at him.

But the FA are surely hamstrung by the fact that they have not been hard enough, draconian enough on racism. How can they now dish out a punishment that is heavier in this case?

Not only that, how is it that violent conduct in the form of biting is seen as worse than punching or even kicking? For that you would get a three-game ban.

And if you were Wayne Rooney playing for England, you would even get the FA to pick up their special, red phone to their gold-plated lawyers to defend YOU.

That's what they did when Rooney - who admitted at the time that his actions had been "stupid" - kicked Montenegro's Miodrag Dzudovic in October 2011 and received a straight red card.

With his Euro 2012 hopes in jeopardy, the FA sent a team of FOUR lawyers to argue Rooney's case successfully.

The FA at the time defended the move, arguing the differences between UEFA's disciplinary system and their own.

But the facts were clear. Rooney had committed an act of violent conduct, widely condemned by everyone. And yet, because it suited the FA's agenda, they did for the England striker what Liverpool are doing for theirs - standing by their man.

It was a move that illustrates the double standards over the whole Suarez affair. Football is chock full of players indulged - at every level - because of their value to a particular team.

It is also crammed to bursting with clubs that have no compunction about snapping up a player whose behaviour has previously gone beyond the pale.

Lee Hughes was sentenced to six years in prison for causing death by dangerous driving in November 2003. On his release in August 2007 he was offered a contract by Oldham.

After a brief spell with Blackpool, he then signed for Notts County and it was his 30 goals that helped County to the League Two title.

Tony Adams was convicted of drink-driving in 1990 after crashing his car into a wall several times over the legal limit.

The incident had come on the back of other tales surrounding his conduct which would have set Twitter ablaze with calls for him to be exiled for the good of the Arsenal's good name.

Instead the Gunners helped him to deal with the alcoholism that had been fuelling his problems and Adams went on to become a club legend.

As has already been pointed out, Eric Cantona is regarded as arguably the greatest player in Manchester United's history by the club's fans despite that kung-fu kick on Matthew Simmons.

Mario Balotelli at Manchester City had a rap sheet as long as your arm but was a cult figure at the club with supporters until he was sold to AC Milan.

Even then boss Roberto Mancini openly admitted he would have the Italy striker back like a shot. Another City frontman, Carlos Tevez, was vilified after allegedly refusing to come on as a substitute in a Champions League game at Bayern Munich.


He went AWOL, returning to Argentina midway through the season and there were calls for him to be booted out of English football.

Yet in the next transfer window Harry Redknapp wanted to sign him for Spurs but the club's board wouldn't back him.

Tevez stayed at City and ended up being hailed a hero by fans for re-energising their charge to a title win they feared had eluded them.

El Hadji Diouf established himself as one of the most hated players in English football after spitting at a Celtic fan as a Liverpool player in 2003 and at Portsmouth's Arjan de Zeeuw as a Bolton player a year later.

He still, however, managed to get supporters onside at Bolton, Sunderland, Blackburn, Rangers, Doncaster and Leeds.

There are more. Many more. Because that's what football does. It gives assets as many chances as they need if they can prove their value to a team on the field of play.

I've been to more matches than I can remember in which players that have committed bad fouls, appalling fouls, have been applauded down the tunnel by their home supporters after being red carded.

Only the other day Jordi Gomez was booed by QPR fans for the crime of being kicked in the head by Bobby Zamora.

And yet fans are queueing up in their droves to demand Suarez is bombed out of the Premier League.

The double standards are breathtaking.

That is not to defend Suarez and his conduct. It is more to point out the extremely dodgy ground on which the whole of football sits.

Suarez deserves to be punished. He deserves absolutely to be held to account for a moronic act that children were discussing at school on Monday morning and that people with even the most casual interest in this sport were repulsed by.

But football hasn't had any morals or values ever since I can remember. It is all about winning. That is all that fans, players, managers, chairmen and owners care most about.

It should clean up its act. But it won't.

So yes, Liverpool could draw a line in the sand, wave goodbye to Suarez and somehow protect their good name. But Brendan Rodgers would find himself under pressure when the team slip down the table and the pundits would still shake their heads and bemoan the decline of a once-great team.

In the meantime, would any other club follow suit, copy the Reds and do the decent thing if one of their their star players transgressed?

No chance.

Another journo who has been bribed. He works for the Mirror again though, so maybe it was a collective bribe: :