Evra accuses Suarez of racism

[Jack D Rips]

No, I don't but it seems to be the trend of the speculation that I've read on here and elsewhere.

Its an assumption that people have made because the Guardian used it as a possible word that could have different meanings to different people.

[andrewces38]

You really can't racially abuse a white player in the same way. If a black player tell a white player to **** off your white c*nt then nothing would happen. It wouldn't be called racism.

If a white player tell a black player black c*nt then it is racism.

We all live in a very weird world.

Im on his side on this one , bang on IMO , I was once called a "milky bar" by a young **** lad when i was 15 im now 42 ................I pissed myself at the time though, And I also had to give back the packet of biscuits I pinched

[Corndog]

but how can Luis Suarez be charged with racism, when the person in the most senior executive position of the world game says it does not exist

Blatters stupid comments could not have come at a worse time, this will probably only fire the british press up more on the issue and cause them to focus more intently on the cases of Suarez and Terry.

[Shaggy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/17/uruguay-embassy-liverpool-luis-suarez

Uruguayan embassy to help Liverpool's Luis Suárez fight FA charges

• Uruguayan FA asks embassy for support in racial abuse case
• Kenny Dalglish out to stop authorities 'walking all over us'

Daniel Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 November 2011 23.00 GMT

Liverpool will have the backing of the Uruguayan football association to help Luis Suárez fight the allegations of racial abuse that have left him open to a long ban and reinforced Kenny Dalglish's view that the authorities are threatening to "walk all over us".

Suárez, who denies the allegations and will plead not guilty, returned from international duty to go straight into talks with Dalglish, Liverpool's manager, about the FA's decision to charge him. Dalglish reiterated that the striker has the club's backing and has been informed that the Uruguayan authorities believe he is innocent. Officials in Montevideo want the help of the Uruguay embassy in London to back Suárez's argument that the words Patrice Evra reported would not be considered offensive in parts of South America.

The semantics will be crucial to the issue, with Dalglish maintaining his view that the player does not deserve to face FA charges of using "abusive and insulting words" including "a reference to the ethnic origin and colour or race" of the Senegal-born Evra.

"I don't think there is any doubt that any player at this football club who finds themselves in a bit of a bad time is always going to be well looked after by the people here," Dalglish said. "That is a given for this club."

The Liverpool manager, repeatedly citing the club's statement that are "fully supportive of Luis", wants the process to be completed "quickly but correctly", and there was a clear sense of a siege mentality building behind the scenes at Anfield.

Dalglish, prickly and keeping his answers deliberately short, has already railed against what he considers to be a string of contentious refereeing decisions against his team and has been incensed by the "disgraceful" scheduling that sees them play a Carling Cup quarter-final against Chelsea on 29 November, only 48 hours after their Premier League game against Manchester City. The Suárez issue has merely compounded Dalglish's view that Liverpool are not getting any help from the authorities.

"Most of the time you don't want to say anything but, if you don't say anything, they'll walk all over you," he said. "They might still walk all over us anyway but you've got to justify yourself, you've got to have an opinion and you've got to make a statement of a belief you've got.

[Chris]

Would love a grinded out win on sunday, get some morale going and a real us against them spirit.

[Vermilion]

One word with many meanings translates into sports controversy.

(CNN) -- A racially-charged word with many meanings may be at the root of a dispute between two sports rivals that reaches far beyond the soccer field, analysts say.

Manchester United's Patrice Evra, who is black, says the word Uruguayan Luis Suarez shouted repeatedly during a match last month was a racial slur. Evra demanded that Suarez be held accountable for the controversial exchange, which erupted as authorities investigate other accusations of racism in soccer.

Suarez, a striker for Liverpool, hasn't specified what he said, but he argues that it wasn't offensive.

"I didn't insult him. It was only a form of expressing myself. I called him something his own teammates from Manchester call him," Suarez said, according to the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais.

British media reports have suggested Suarez used the Spanish word "negrito."

If that's the case, whether Suarez's remark was racist is a complicated question that doesn't have a black-and-white answer, according to scholars who've studied race issues in Latin America.

"It's about questions of translation or context," said Mark Sawyer, director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics at the University of California Los Angeles.

The word's literal translation is "little black man." But generally, negrito is not considered a racial slur in Latin America, Sawyer said. In fact, it frequently has a positive meaning.

"It's often a term of endearment," he said.

But what the word means also depends on where -- and how -- it's said.

"In Puerto Rico, it has one meaning. In Cuba it has a slightly different connotation and in the Dominican Republic it has a slightly different connotation," said Jorge Chinea, director of the Center for Chicano-Boricua Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Chinea said his mother and stepfather, both of whom were light-skinned, frequently used the word.

"When they talked as a couple, my mother would say, 'negrito, I love you.' ... I grew up listening to those expressions commonly being used by a lot of people in my community in Puerto Rico. And it was never associated with any color," he said.

After he moved to the United States in the 1960s, Chinea said, the word took on a different meaning. Many of his acquaintances used racial nicknames, he said, but there was no harm intended.

"It was always more like a quick way of acknowledging the distinctiveness of that person in a very friendly way," he said.

But Chinea said one of his Cuban colleagues in graduate school who employed the word drew criticism.

"When he used it and other people heard it, people came to me to complain. ... In the United States, it sounds offensive to some people," Chinea said.

In Uruguay, the meaning is clear, said U.S. radio talk show host Fernando Espuelas, who originally hails from the South American country.

"It's not a slur whatsoever," said Espuelas, whose show often addresses racism in the Latino community. "It's a term of endearment. You definitely would not use that if you were angry. It would sound ridiculous."

Several scholars said the word's meaning could be connected with complicated racial politics in different Latin American countries, which each had unique historical experiences with colonization and the slave trade.

Uruguay, Chinea noted, has a smaller population of African descendants than some other Latin American nations. In 2006, about 9% of the population declared "Afro or black" roots, according to Uruguay's National Statistics Institute.

"If I were of African descent and someone from that part of the world was to use the word toward me, I would probably think twice about what the intentions are, whereas if the person who was saying it was from Cuba you'd probably take it as a joke. And if you said it to a Puerto Rican, they'd just love it," Chinea said.

Using the word negrito to describe U.S. President Barack Obama got a Honduran government official into hot water in 2009.

Then-Foreign Minister Enrique Ortez was forced to resign after he called Obama a "negrito who does not know where (the Honduran capital of) Tegucigalpa is."

But analysts said without hearing exactly what Suarez shouted in the October football match, or how he said it, it's impossible to know what he meant.

"It's a very interesting case. It will be interesting to see if the English Football Association actually consults experts on this," Sawyer said. "If you want to charge someone with racism or making a racial slur, the person should at least have the intent of making a slur. It's not necessarily clear that Luis Suarez had that intent."

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/17/sport/soccer-word-controversy/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

[Shaggy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/17/gus-poyet-luis-suarez-racism

Gus Poyet accuses Patrice Evra of ‘crying like a baby’ in racism case

November 17, 2011 by Daniel Taylor | 0 comments

• Brighton manager claims United defender overreacted
• 'I played seven years in Spain and was called everything'

Patrice Evra, the Manchester United defender at the centre of the Luis Suárez racism case, has been accused of overreacting and "crying like a baby" in an astonishing attack by Gus Poyet, a friend of the Liverpool striker.

Poyet's condemnation flies in the face of the Kick It Out campaign's
instruction for footballers to report anything they consider to be racial slurs.

But the Brighton manager believes Suárez has been harshly treated and his dismay about his fellow Uruguayan being charged by the Football Association manifested itself in an outburst about the behaviour of the alleged victim.
"I believe Luis Suárez, it's simple," Poyet said. "I played football for seven years in Spain and was called everything because I was from South America, and I never went out crying like a baby, like Patrice Evra, saying that someone had said something to me."

Poyet, who has befriended Suárez since the striker moved to Liverpool from Ajax in January, is not convinced the FA has enough evidence to warrant a charge of using racial insults. Suárez has denied the allegations and will plead not guilty.

"I'm surprised, in a really sad way, that he has been charged," Poyet said. "Really sad. I think it's worse to charge someone because you trust one person when you have no proof.

"I'm really sad about this charge as it's going to become too easy. I can make a complaint about any opposition manager and if I take it as far as I can he's going to get charged. Why are we going to take one person's word over another? It's too risky."

Those comments will go down badly at Old Trafford and may provoke the United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, into making a response when he holds his weekly press briefing on Friday. Evra, who alleges he was called a variation of the N-word "at least 10 times", has decided not to comment until the case is heard.

Poyet, whose playing career includes spells at Real Zaragoza, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, appeared to be saying Evra should never have made a complaint. However, he contradicted that view when asked about the Fifa president Sepp Blatter's comments that victims of racial slurs should shake hands with their abusers at the end of matches and not take the matter further. "I respect him as Fifa president but I don't listen to him when he talks about football," he said.

[Ben_Itez]

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/suarez-is-charged-with-racist-abuse-6263140.html

Suarez is charged with racist abuse

Evra to use team-mates' testimony when FA makes complicated case against Liverpool striker

Ian Herbert, 17th November 2011

The Football Association is likely to draw on the testimony of
Patrice Evra's Manchester United team-mates when Liverpool's Luis
Suarez appears on charges of racially abusing the French defender
during last month's Premier League match at Anfield.

United have always been convinced of Evra's claims that Suarez used the "n-word" against him 10 times and a substantial number of the club's players, as well as manager Sir Alex Ferguson, are understood to have been interviewed as part of the five-week FA inquiry. Though the case has been a complicated one, involving the linguistic nuance of what Suarez allegedly said, the FA is convinced that the Uruguayan "included a reference to the ethnic origin and/or colour and/or race of Patrice Evra" during the match.

Though Liverpool indicated immediately last night that the player would plead not guilty, the charge is potentially a severe blow which could mean a player upon whom they are already heavily dependent being banned for at least three matches and possibly more.

In a case of potentially huge significance, the FA must first prove to a commission of four people and be chaired by an independent QC that Suarez did indeed racially abuse the Frenchman.

Though Suarez has admitted using words which would be familiar to some of Evra's teammates – negrito, which translates as "little black man" is widely accepted as a term of endearment and to poke fun, in South America – it will be for the FA to prove something more sinister.

Such cases have been rare in the past because of the difficulty of proof. When Newcastle United's Turkish midfielder Emre Belozoglu was charged with racist abuse against Everton four years ago, he left his personal hearing with the case unproved – despite written evidence submitted to the commission from Everton's Joleon Lescott, Joseph Yobo and Tim Howard.

The Reading defender John Mackie did issue a public apology, donated two weeks' wages to Kick Racism Out of Football and was banned for eight matches, five of which were suspended, after making racist remarks to Sheffield United striker Carl Asaba in 2003 – though he had admitted the offence.

The lesser of the two offences Suarez has been charged with is the use of "abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour." Typically, that would bring a two-match ban. Suarez is due back in Liverpool from international duty today, when the club will waste no time in discussing the charge with him.

If the Uruguayan is convicted, he could conceivably face a police inquiry, though Merseyside Police could not do that unless they receive a complaint. Evra would not necessarily need to be that complainant. Merseyside Police said in a statement last night: "A complaint has not been received by the Force in relation to an allegation of an offensive comment made by a Liverpool Football Club player to a Manchester United Football Club player during a match on 15 October."

Liverpool's statement said: "We will discuss the matter fully with [Luis] when he returns from international duty, but he will plead not guilty to the charge and we expect him to request a personal hearing. United said they would not comment "in accordance with guidance from the authorities".

[Arn]

As I already said a few times. What his team mates say shouldn't affect the case at all. They shouldn't be involved in the case at all because you simply can't trust them telling the truth. They will support their team mate no matter what.

It wouldn't be allowed in court so why should it be allowed now?

Isn't it strange that suddenly his team mates did hear something. When asked about it after the game not a single one of them said that they heard something

[little dave hedgehog]

if you already said it many times, why say it again?

[Arn]

if you already said it many times, why say it again?

[Craig_H]

if you already said it many times, why say it again?

[Craig_H]

The mancs are all on their high horse, slating Suarez to the hilt, for allegedly racially abusing Evra.

Yes, that's Man Utd fans, who call Rafa 'fat Spanish waiter', up in arms about an alleged bout of racism.

Couldnt make it up....

[sean_lfc]

There's a Python sketch for everything in life and I think this is how it will all unfold (sadly)...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g[/ame]

[MrMichael]

We are all inherently racist if we be completely honest with ourselfs here but, you literally find it in every part of the world except perhaps some rare Buddhists countries, but on a whole its there, we all must try harder to stamp it out. Personally I have never thought it was ok to use the P word or any other word like it for that matter.

Also I would like to sat whilst Est 1892 and its motley crew of weirdos can be accused of many things by and large racism is not one of them, most of the people on this site hold much more civilized intelligent views on race, gender and discrimination by and large, so I would say most of us all different colors sex's sexualities would not think using the P word is ok, I have known these shower of cunts for a long time now and whilst there taste in music and computer games is appalling and metaphysically they are as about as enlightened as a load of hovis bread, they are by and large quite an accepting bunch, me included.