Fan incident during Oldham game

[BobTheCharmer]

If that article is correct and one moron shouted you ****ing black *******, well I'm sorry but what an over reaction. You're not telling me he's got to 20 and not heard this said before? It's unpleasant and the culprit should be banned but ****ing hell how would this lad have survived growing up if he was born 20 years earlier? Has he been in a protective bubble his whole life. The world can be ugly at times. But far worse than this happens to folk every single day.

If true I hope we apologise to the lad as a club, try and do something nice for him and put it behind us and move on.

[malg]

If that article is correct and one moron shouted you ****ing black *******, well I'm sorry but what an over reaction. You're not telling me he's got to 20 and not heard this said before? It's unpleasant and the culprit should be banned but ****ing hell how would this lad have survived growing up if he was born 20 years earlier? Has he been in a protective bubble his whole life. The world can be ugly at times. But far worse than this happens to folk every single day.

If true I hope we apologise to the lad as a club, try and do something nice for him and put it behind us and move on.

[Exiled_red]

The ban for Suarez was over the top. The fan who abused the Oldham player last night IF found to be true should be banned for life and face criminal charges. As for us agreeing everything else, I for don't feel the LFC done anything wrong in the defence of Suarez and we should just not role over and get are bellies rubbed. The FA and Evra have caused all this **** not Liverpool.

[Vermilion]

If that article is correct and one moron shouted you ****ing black *******, well I'm sorry but what an over reaction. You're not telling me he's got to 20 and not heard this said before? It's unpleasant and the culprit should be banned but ****ing hell how would this lad have survived growing up if he was born 20 years earlier? Has he been in a protective bubble his whole life. The world can be ugly at times. But far worse than this happens to folk every single day.

If true I hope we apologise to the lad as a club, try and do something nice for him and put it behind us and move on.

But is calling someone You Black ******* even racist, apparently many black players will tell you otherwise.

There's even a well known Journo who spoke to those balck players and they told him so, maybe we should ask him why his paper is making all the fuss.

[Fredo]

This is what LFC's response SHOULD have been.

We should have said that the lad used a racial term and for that he broke the rules and deserves a punishment. We should have said sorry from the off for that and meant it.

We should have said that racial language really is unacceptable even when, as in this case, the player was not intending it as a slur, and lessons have been learned.

We should have said that we agreed with a ban but feel that the extent of the punishment has unfairly given Suarez a reputation in the public eye that we feel is undeserved.

We could have made the point that there were many mitigating factors in this case that pointed to a lesser punishment.

We could have pointed out that this was a nuanced and complex case that depended in part on linguistic and cultural interpretations and we felt it demanded a more considered response from the authorities. We could have made the point that Luis Suarez could easily have chosen to use a racial slur rather than a racial term had this been his aim, and emphasise that everyone has accepted that Luis Suarez is not a racist, including Patrice Evra, Suarez's own team mates and the FA report itself.

We could have reiterated our zero tolerance to racism in football and our 100% support to the FA's commitment to eradicating it from the game.

We could have reiterated that we feel Luis Suarez broke the rules and deserves punishment and that our only question would be over the length of the ban, which makes this look a much more straigthforward case than it really was.

But we didn't. We acted with all the extreme emotions of a fan and created a crusade. It was foolish.

Edited. Sorry picked the wrong post.

[TheElephantMan]

The ban for Suarez was over the top. The fan who abused the Oldham player last night IF found to be true should be banned for life and face criminal charges. As for us agreeing everything else, I for don't feel the LFC done anything wrong in the defence of Suarez and we should just not role over and get are bellies rubbed. The FA and Evra have caused all this **** not Liverpool.

I don't care about the ban, I personally still believe that Suarez is innocent. The more I think about it Evra's account makes less sense. That's gone for now. In hindsight we were naive, but we're not racists and Suarez is not a racist.

We can use this period of negativity as a springboard, we now have to be at the forefront of the anti-racism campaign and show that racism won't be tolerated here. It seems a shame that we are having discussions like this in 2012, but it's good that we are talking and as a club we can focus on how we move forward.

[Exiled_red]

I don't care about the ban, I personally still believe that Suarez is innocent. The more I think about it Evra's account makes less sense. That's gone for now. In hindsight we were naive, but we're not racists and Suarez is not a racist.

We can use this period of negativity as a springboard, we now have to be at the forefront of the anti-racism campaign and show that racism won't be tolerated here. It seems a shame that we are having discussions like this in 2012, but it's good that we are talking and as a club we can focus on how we move forward.

[Beastie]

For **** sake, I know its wrong, but banning sombody for life at a football ground for calling sombody a black *******!!!!!!!!

[TheElephantMan]

For **** sake, I know its wrong, but banning sombody for life at a football ground for calling sombody a black *******!!!!!!!!

Surely this is some sort of WUMmery?

[Fredo]

For **** sake, I know its wrong, but banning sombody for life at a football ground for calling sombody a black *******!!!!!!!!

Ffs.

[Nicey]

Football fans are a representation of society and unfortunately there are nasty ***** everywhere, at every club including ours.

If it's proven that something racist was said then it's actually a very good opportunity for the club to show it does not tolerate racism by banning the ****s and handing their info over to the police.

Completely agree

We are a decent club full of decent people and decent fans, like you say we have our fare share of numpties and we can respond to this in kind and ban these people for life, if they did indeed say what has been claimed.

God this whole thing has been tiresome, I have been defending our club, manager, players on and offline for ****s knows how long .. theres me thinking we are done with this and this happens ..

**** me considering the **** the club is already in I am surprised some handy fans have not popped by for a quite little chat with these two ****ing numpties

[Nicey]

Surely this is some sort of WUMmery?

unfortunately I bet you it is not

[Neil Young]

This is what LFC's response SHOULD have been.

We should have said that the lad used a racial term and for that he broke the rules and deserves a punishment. We should have said sorry from the off for that and meant it.

We should have said that racial language really is unacceptable even when, as in this case, the player was not intending it as a slur, and lessons have been learned.

We should have said that we agreed with a ban but feel that the extent of the punishment has unfairly given Suarez a reputation in the public eye that we feel is undeserved.

We could have made the point that there were many mitigating factors in this case that pointed to a lesser punishment.

We could have pointed out that this was a nuanced and complex case that depended in part on linguistic and cultural interpretations and we felt it demanded a more considered response from the authorities. We could have made the point that Luis Suarez could easily have chosen to use a racial slur rather than a racial term had this been his aim, and emphasise that everyone has accepted that Luis Suarez is not a racist, including Patrice Evra, Suarez's own team mates and the FA report itself.

We could have reiterated our zero tolerance to racism in football and our 100% support to the FA's commitment to eradicating it from the game.

We could have reiterated that we feel Luis Suarez broke the rules and deserves punishment and that our only question would be over the length of the ban, which makes this look a much more straigthforward case than it really was.

But we didn't. We acted with all the extreme emotions of a fan and created a crusade. It was foolish.

My initial reaction was that the club statement was right but having had a few days to think about it and reading posts like this, I'm convinced you're right. The club's response was misjudged, not least because it failed to take into account how it might be represented.

[Vermilion]

The clubs stance should be as ever, if there is evidence to prove a fan/player did/said something wrong they will be punished according to the seriousness of the crime.

If the FA had taken this approach, we wouldn't be at the point we are today.

[Neil Young]

I take your point but surely recent experience has taught us that blaming others, as your statement about the FA implies, is foolish when dealing with this sort of incident internally.