Luis Suárez

[TheElephantMan]

If he wants to stay fit during the summer he's more than welcome to play 5-a-side with me and my workmates during his 10 match ban (as long as he's on my side ).

[Muddled]

If he can't play because he's banned then he can't be named in the U21 squad, so those matches can't be added to the quota

Agreed.

[Nick77]

Like Shaggy said, he's banned from everything, they confirmed it on twitter.

He needs the rest anyway, he's been playing non stop(except bans!) for years now.

Only from English competitive 1st team matches (ie. League & Cup games) - they have no jurisdiction over European games (not that we'll be involved) or friendlies...

[G]

Only from English competitive 1st team matches (ie. League & Cup games) - they have no jurisdiction over European games (not that we'll be involved) or friendlies...

He's banned from any domestic competitive matches at any level.

Pretty obvious that doesn't include non competitive or European games, which we don't have any of either way, yet.

[Reece]

Luis and Daughter say happy Mother's Day (Spain)

[Gibbo]

Vicious heartless thug isn't he.

[Phoenix07]

Looks a bit like Maradona.

Writing all over his daughter's face too. The FA will probably get social services involved.

[McDermotX]

Worse than Hitler.

Terrible example to be setting for parents out there. Must be the only time I've seen a kid's face being painted on.

[dom9]

What are you lot on?

[Bender]

what's going on ?

[Yozza]

Worse than Hitler.

Terrible example to be setting for parents out there. Must be the only time I've seen a kid's face being painted on.

Should have painted a swastika & be done with it

[Gingawaria]

It's probably to cover up the marks on her face where he's bit her!!!

He's an awful human being!!!!!!!

[Buzzo]

Seems like Reginald D. new what he was doing all along, sourcing new material.

Game for a laugh: The PFA awards furore was a joke – and Reginald D Hunter makes the most of it

It was the night the beautiful game showed the race card. So how did the comedian at the centre of the storm move on?

Saturday 04 May 2013

Whichever way you look at it, the Professional Footballers’ Association scored a spectacular own goal this week and Reginald D Hunter – he of the dazzling, sweet-natured smile, the dreadlocks and the unhurried charm – was in no mood to let anyone forget that fact when he played to a packed, loudly appreciative audience at Cheltenham Town Hall on Thursday.


This was the first gig the black American comedian had done since his controversial performance last Sunday at the PFA’s Awards Ceremony at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

In Cheltenham, before his scheduled routine for his new tour (which is entitled In the Midst of Crackers), Hunter added a whole first half of very funny and agile-witted reflections arising from the affair. Yes, he liked to use the word “******” – he reported early on – but he is not trying to “reclaim” it, because, s***, it was a white invention in the first place.

It’s because of his unabashed use of the N-word at the footballers’ ceremony and because he was typically thoughtful and provocative about race, that the PFA has recoiled in horror. The agency through which he was booked– the London Speaker Bureau – is apparently alleging that he infringed an unwritten agreement about the kind of material he would perform, and there’s talk of him being asked to refund his fee.

Referring to “a big corporate ass-covering”, Hunter maintained that there were no “guidelines” to contravene, that is he known to be a man who’s fond of “swinging [his] nuts” and that what’s particularly dispiriting is that “even people who are supportive of me think that it was a mistake booking me”. Indeed, favourable online comments nonetheless bristle with notions such as that recruiting him was tantamount to “booking Frankie Boyle to entertain Mencap”.

But the ironies, I would suggest, go deeper than that. An organisation in charge of a sport that is not exactly renowned for its freedom from racism (either on the field or off) hires a black comedian only to disown him and to wax censorious because his work refuses to be pious about the subject of race or to eschew the N-word. It’s a bizarre and hypocritical scenario and it’s given me fantasies of some cock-eyed, through-the-looking-glass world in which, say, Hezbollah hires Jackie Mason to do the cabaret at its AGM and then huffily demands its money back when he cracks self-deprecating Jewish jokes.

Political correctness – at its best a voluntary code of sensitive, verbally watchful respect for the otherness of people who are different from ourselves – can itself be guilty of discriminatory bad faith, along the lines of “I’m right-thinking. You’re politically correct. He’s a language-fascist.” And its obsession with linguistic purity can all too easily become a substitute for lifting so much as a finger where actually promoting cordiality, whether interracial or between mainstream and minority cultures, is concerned.

“You can make any word racist if you have the hate behind it,” declared Hunter in a set that is full of cleverly layered naughtiness – the line “If a movie were made about me, I’d want Meryl Streep to play me”, followed by a fantasy of what she might say about the part on her way to the Baftas – is funny on many levels (especially if you have seen Angels in America).

And he keeps skilfully steering the audience into morally challenging territory. Born in Georgia but based in the UK for more than a decade, the 44-year-old described how his own attitudes towards what counts as racist have evolved and changed over time.

He recollected his adventures with the first woman he slept with (“it took three years”) in this country. She was white and in the course of their lovemaking, there was a moment when she asked: “How does it feel to be in the master’s bed?” “I was taken aback, right?” Hunter continued. “I mean, I almost stopped f***ing her.”

His point is that, back then, he thought that there was a racist edge to her query. Now he’s more inclined to see it as part of the exploratory quality of sexual (role-)play and experience in general. “We take chances; we explore dangerous corners... to see what would happen if we crossed the line.”

Comedy, like sex, is no great respecter of boundaries of taste or taboo. And offence and offensiveness aren’t, for the non-religious, objective phenomena. They exist in the ear and eye of the receiver.

Hunter talked of “these people who want to control people through anti-racism laws”. Of course, a situation can arise where the relatively powerless find themselves bullied into laughing at jokes made about them because they fear that by not doing so they will fail the “good sport” test. Equally, you can decide to take offence at anything, with horribly restrictive consequences to those who don’t agree with you.

Christopher Ricks, our greatest literary critic, once gave a talk about how all true comedy has to take the calculated risk of offending someone, and that most true comedy makes liberating, thoughtful play with the fact that everyone is a type.

“I’m a type,” he quipped with ironic mock-riskiness, “the type of bald septuagenarian professor who pretends to like Bob Dylan in order to come into contact with beautiful people, especially female.” Try passing on that wisdom to the PFA.

In Cheltenham, Hunter had, as his support act, an engaging and quick-witted Canadian comedian, Pete Johansson, who certainly got us in the mood with gags such as how, standing on top of the world’s tallest skyscraper in Dubai, he found himself thinking: “Well, mmm... but no, Christians would never fly a plane into a tower”. (Split-second pause.) “Unless there was an abortion clinic on the top.”

As Hunter’s fate this week emphasises, the world would be a more rigid, doctrinaire place if only atheistic pro-choice activists would be prepared to admit to a jolt of stimulation from the way that remark is not quite kosher.

[Shaggy]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/liverpool-transfers-atletico-madrid-prepare-1874605

Mad for it! Atletico prepare £40m bid for Liverpool striker Luis Suarez.. with backing from Azerbaijan government
7 May 2013 22:30

Meanwhile, Barcelona are stepping up their interest in Reds keeper Pepe Reina as they look to replace Victor Valdes

Liverpool's desire to keep Luis Suarez will be tested to the limit by big-spending Atletico Madrid.

And the bad news for Reds boss Brendan Rodgers, is the oil-rich Azerbaijan government are throwing their vast wealth behind the project to take the star striker to Span!

Bizarrely, the state government in Baku are using the country's oil billions to promote their nation across the world, and part of that strategy was to sign a multi-million shirt sponsorship deal in January with the Madrid club.

Atletico will have upwards of £40million to spend in the summer after finally resigning themselves to losing their pin up centre forward Radamel Falcao, who has been strongly linked with a move to Chelsea next season, and will command a massive fee when the sale is confirmed.

The problem though, would be Suarez's wages, with the Uruguay international signing a new deal at Anfield last summer worth in excess of £5million a year.

That is where Azerbaijan comes in, with Atletico asking their sponsors to inject 6million Euros a year into the club to pay the South American's wages in a bid to tempt him to the club.

Liverpool maintained throughout Suarez's biting storm the controversy would not change their intent to keep the influential player, and Rodgers is hoping to persuade him to stay, despite being unable to offer any European football, with the Reds down in seventh place in the Premier League.

The lure of Madrid though, could be great for the Uruguayan because they will not only be able to offer an increase on his Anfield wages, but as the current Europa League holders would be confident of becoming a legitimate force in the Champions' League next season.

The Spanish club have already confirmed their place in next season's competition with a solid third place behind Barcelona and neighbours Real in La Liga, and they are looking for a star name to lead their European campaign.

They also have Uruguay international defender Diego Godin on the books, who just happens to be a close friend of Suarez, and was once linked with Liverpool because of that relationship. Another of the striker's countrymen and friends, Cristian Rodriguez also plays for Atletico.

The Azerbaijan government would relish the link with Suarez, after making several bids through sport and culture in recent years to increase their nation's profile. They have invested heavily in failed Olympics bids, won the rights to host the 2015 European games, and even hosted last year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Columbian striker Falcao has confirmed he will leave in the summer, and Chelsea now seem 100 per cent certain to capture the exciting south American after Real Madrid pulled out of the running for his services.

The 27 year old is demanding almost £8million a year in wages, and the Spanish giants have turned that down flat. Chelsea though, have no such reservations, with owner Roman Abramovich determined to complete the deal.

That will give Atletico the war chest to seriously test Liverpool's resolve to keep Suarez, and there are other factors in favour of their bid.

Head coach Diego Simeone is familiar to Suarez after starring for Argentina during most of his formative years, and the Atletico chief is now considered one of the most highly rated bosses in the game, after winning both the Europa League and the European Super Cup.

Atletico have also started work on a new state of the art 70,000 seat stadium which is due to be completed at the end of next year...and they would love to have a striker of Suarez's stature to open it.

One factor in Liverpool's favour would be the centre forward's reluctance to join a team just below the European elite, but the English club may find Atletico's bid may pave the way for similar bids from even bigger clubs, with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich maintaining an interest.

[Kenneth]

All that planning and effort and they came up with £40m. What a waste.