Suarez and Evra: The Real ‘Lie’ You Haven’t Been Told
With the dust settling awkwardly in the back of people’s throats up and down the country you can almost taste the division that exists within football. It has been played out with all the tension and cross examination of a courtroom drama yet the aftermath will be all too real.
I can’t begin to tell you the sadness I feel as I watch players, fans and the press alike jostling for position to stand behind one side or the other, standing in judgement on who is right and who is wrong. It wears heavy on the soul as you watch the beautiful game, so often held up like a beacon of light that can unite us all regardless of race, religion or colour, being used as a tool to tear apart the world of football and it all based around a lie.
In anything involving race now the world fears to act rationally, we cannot look at things how they are but we have to first thing how does my reaction make me look from a moral position. It’s not so much about what could be done or what should be done but what we should been seen to be doing to make us look politically correct in a world of division.
The irony isn’t lost on me though that whilst preaching tolerance and understanding as something they need to uphold, they F.A have shown neither in any great amount. They certainly haven’t understood the spirit of using sport to beat racism and unite people and they have shown no tolerance to the idea different cultures view things differently.
On one hand you have Suarez, a player deeply hurt to be labelled a racist who says he had little idea his words would be felt so personally by Evra and saw nothing racist in what he said. Then you have Evra saying he feels what was said was racist and he shouldn’t have put up with such words in the modern game.
Here my friends you will find the real ‘lie’ they’re both right. They are both 100% cast iron right in their viewpoints. The F.A couldn’t have been in a worse position to oversee such an issue. Like an old headmaster looking over adolescent pupils, they see things only in black and white if you excuse the wording and when an incident occurs so terrified of the watching public they must decide one way or the other somebody is to blame, somebody is wrong.
The truth is when you are dealing with people, emotions and vastly different cultures it’s an approach as out of date as the association themselves. To fully understand how both parties can be right, you have to understand the people involved.
Evra has grown up as an African immigrant living in France, a country that has issues with racial divides. Though his personal experiences growing up are not known to me it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to think that he may have suffered at least verbally some abuse with racial tones growing up. Perhaps certain words directed towards him that make him rightly sensitive if anybody uses similar words today.
Suarez has lead a different life, In Uruguay there is no real racial divisions between people of different skin colour. They exist hand in hand and little meaning of harm is meant by reference to skin colour, it’s as pedestrian as somebody being tall or skinny. Certainly racially, Uruguay has a far more evolved society with little of the differences and the issues that plague the UK and France when dealing with race.
The same word could be used, a word not in dispute yet to both it could have different meanings. If Evra heard such a word it’s understandable he would get upset and he should his life has taught him such a word is meant to cause offence. The same word would not enter into Luis Suarez mind as having the same meaning as his experience of the word is different, even friendly.
They’re both right. That’s the lie that one side or the other has to be wrong. The real almost laughable conclusion the F.A came to is that somehow they could rule which is more right than the other. In fighting intolerance racially they have actually displayed their own racial intolerance to the South American community.
There is a current swelling of feeling with South America and especially Uruguay that indeed the F.A’s verdict is ‘racist’ itself, that somehow three middle aged British men can condemn their society and how they speak as ‘racist’.
Journalists have spoken about how this was the most difficult case in the F.A’s history, something which should be laughed off the pages of the press. They made it difficult for themselves by setting a course from the offset that would see one party or the other branded wrong at best racist at worst.
If you imagine the true spirit of football is to unite rather than divide, to show tolerance rather than prejudice and find understanding and compassion with all walks of like regardless of sex, race, colour or religion then in every sense they failed.
I say this with severe hesitation but perhaps Blatter said it right when he suggested a ‘handshake’ in this particular case. Rather than seek to prosecute, perhaps education and mediation was the way forward.
One room, two men and a few officials is all it would have took. An opportunity for Evra to explain why he was so upset and how his life has shaped his view of the word and then an chance for Suarez to apologise for any offence and explain how his life has given him a very different meaning of that same word.
That’s all it would have taken. It’s almost embarrassing what the result has been when that’s all that was needed. It was an opportunity to show the world with a bit of understanding and communication Evra and Suarez not in opposite corners but sharing a smile with the world. A chance to prove football can unite even when it appears differences are visible.
As human beings surely we are capable of seeing that not everything is a crime, that misunderstandings in a multi cultural world are possible and that they can be resolved without forcing society to brand either one a liar or one a racist when neither is true. Such notions appear lost in the governing body of football in this country but I won’t let their ‘lies’ affect my understanding of the game and I hope they don’t yours.
Two good men, two good footballers and both were right. It’s a shame they were publicly subjected to such a confrontational process and maybe now we can learn from this and move forward a more civilised and compassionate sport.
With the dust settling awkwardly in the back of people’s throats up and down the country you can almost taste the division that exists within football. It has been played out with all the tension and cross examination of a courtroom drama yet the aftermath will be all too real.
I can’t begin to tell you the sadness I feel as I watch players, fans and the press alike jostling for position to stand behind one side or the other, standing in judgement on who is right and who is wrong. It wears heavy on the soul as you watch the beautiful game, so often held up like a beacon of light that can unite us all regardless of race, religion or colour, being used as a tool to tear apart the world of football and it all based around a lie.
In anything involving race now the world fears to act rationally, we cannot look at things how they are but we have to first thing how does my reaction make me look from a moral position. It’s not so much about what could be done or what should be done but what we should been seen to be doing to make us look politically correct in a world of division.
The irony isn’t lost on me though that whilst preaching tolerance and understanding as something they need to uphold, they F.A have shown neither in any great amount. They certainly haven’t understood the spirit of using sport to beat racism and unite people and they have shown no tolerance to the idea different cultures view things differently.
On one hand you have Suarez, a player deeply hurt to be labelled a racist who says he had little idea his words would be felt so personally by Evra and saw nothing racist in what he said. Then you have Evra saying he feels what was said was racist and he shouldn’t have put up with such words in the modern game.
Here my friends you will find the real ‘lie’ they’re both right. They are both 100% cast iron right in their viewpoints. The F.A couldn’t have been in a worse position to oversee such an issue. Like an old headmaster looking over adolescent pupils, they see things only in black and white if you excuse the wording and when an incident occurs so terrified of the watching public they must decide one way or the other somebody is to blame, somebody is wrong.
The truth is when you are dealing with people, emotions and vastly different cultures it’s an approach as out of date as the association themselves. To fully understand how both parties can be right, you have to understand the people involved.
Evra has grown up as an African immigrant living in France, a country that has issues with racial divides. Though his personal experiences growing up are not known to me it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to think that he may have suffered at least verbally some abuse with racial tones growing up. Perhaps certain words directed towards him that make him rightly sensitive if anybody uses similar words today.
Suarez has lead a different life, In Uruguay there is no real racial divisions between people of different skin colour. They exist hand in hand and little meaning of harm is meant by reference to skin colour, it’s as pedestrian as somebody being tall or skinny. Certainly racially, Uruguay has a far more evolved society with little of the differences and the issues that plague the UK and France when dealing with race.
The same word could be used, a word not in dispute yet to both it could have different meanings. If Evra heard such a word it’s understandable he would get upset and he should his life has taught him such a word is meant to cause offence. The same word would not enter into Luis Suarez mind as having the same meaning as his experience of the word is different, even friendly.
They’re both right. That’s the lie that one side or the other has to be wrong. The real almost laughable conclusion the F.A came to is that somehow they could rule which is more right than the other. In fighting intolerance racially they have actually displayed their own racial intolerance to the South American community.
There is a current swelling of feeling with South America and especially Uruguay that indeed the F.A’s verdict is ‘racist’ itself, that somehow three middle aged British men can condemn their society and how they speak as ‘racist’.
Journalists have spoken about how this was the most difficult case in the F.A’s history, something which should be laughed off the pages of the press. They made it difficult for themselves by setting a course from the offset that would see one party or the other branded wrong at best racist at worst.
If you imagine the true spirit of football is to unite rather than divide, to show tolerance rather than prejudice and find understanding and compassion with all walks of like regardless of sex, race, colour or religion then in every sense they failed.
I say this with severe hesitation but perhaps Blatter said it right when he suggested a ‘handshake’ in this particular case. Rather than seek to prosecute, perhaps education and mediation was the way forward.
One room, two men and a few officials is all it would have took. An opportunity for Evra to explain why he was so upset and how his life has shaped his view of the word and then an chance for Suarez to apologise for any offence and explain how his life has given him a very different meaning of that same word.
That’s all it would have taken. It’s almost embarrassing what the result has been when that’s all that was needed. It was an opportunity to show the world with a bit of understanding and communication Evra and Suarez not in opposite corners but sharing a smile with the world. A chance to prove football can unite even when it appears differences are visible.
As human beings surely we are capable of seeing that not everything is a crime, that misunderstandings in a multi cultural world are possible and that they can be resolved without forcing society to brand either one a liar or one a racist when neither is true. Such notions appear lost in the governing body of football in this country but I won’t let their ‘lies’ affect my understanding of the game and I hope they don’t yours.
Two good men, two good footballers and both were right. It’s a shame they were publicly subjected to such a confrontational process and maybe now we can learn from this and move forward a more civilised and compassionate sport.
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