Roberto Firmino

[Snigger]

Apparently Firmino is in Cyprus with his wife and not in Dubai - could be bollocks of course.

[RedReet]

Apparently Firmino is in Cyprus with his wife and not in Dubai - could be bollocks of course.

Definitely true. What it may or may not mean is another story though...

[G]

[ame="https://twitter.com/pjcadden/status/950034596258811904"]https://twitter.com/pjcadden/status/950034596258811904[/ame]

[Assassin]

https://twitter.com/pjcadden/status/950034596258811904

Interesting. I thought I read somewhere that this was taken care of at half time

[Phoenix07]

Interesting. I thought I read somewhere that this was taken care of at half time

That was mentioned by a journalist, but who knows what's going on now.

[cream]

If it's only Holgate that says he heard the Firmino use the word then bobby has nothing to worry about.

[Exiled_red]

Who do they take statements from?

I read somewhere that they didn't take a statement from Firmino, and from Klopp's press conference it didn't sound like he was fully aware of exactly what had happened, so I doubt they can have taken statements from any of the LFC players at least not before Klopp's post match press conference.

If this is the case then the suggestion from the Echo about what happens next - the FA looking at all the evidence before deciding whether to charge Firmino by Tuesday doesn't seem likely. Unless they are going to make a decision whether to charge him or not without statements from everyone present (the key people being Firmino, Holgate, the referee, Lallana and Kenny as they were all right there when the incident took place). It seems likely that the only statements they could have are from Holgate and the referee.

[Exiled_red]

Interesting. I thought I read somewhere that this was taken care of at half time

I read that too, I wondered initially if there had to be an FA investigation because the allegation had been made even if it was sorted out later, to ensure that no hushing up or anything was done (not saying that happened here but you could imagine it's something that might/could happen). But I suspect that the report of it being sorted out at half time was probably wrong.

[Big-Red-Ed]

It's a possibility. I don't believe it though. I reckon he heard something he thought was close enough that he could try it on unfortunately. He was looking for a way out of the situation and he latched onto that as his best hope.

I sadly think this is what happened.

Sent from my P01M using Tapatalk

[Buzzo]

I’d be really surprised if there is anything in this.

The young lad was clearly fired up, aware that he might be about to be sent off and confronted by Fiirminos shiny teeth and his big new do.

Firmino just doesn’t seem like the sort of player or person to be calling other players “******”. Particularly given the skin colour of many of his team mates. Suárez was a different personality, played on the edge and took chances he used a word that he new to be provocative but (so far as I remember) culturally to him one that was not racist. Firmino seems a lot cooler, so to believe Firmino was capable of chucking out an ‘N’ bomb just stretches credulity a little too far.

I’m calling at best crossed wires and a mix up, at worst an attempt on a another players reputation.

[Snigger]

Who do they take statements from?

I read somewhere that they didn't take a statement from Firmino, and from Klopp's press conference it didn't sound like he was fully aware of exactly what had happened, so I doubt they can have taken statements from any of the LFC players at least not before Klopp's post match press conference.

If this is the case then the suggestion from the Echo about what happens next - the FA looking at all the evidence before deciding whether to charge Firmino by Tuesday doesn't seem likely. Unless they are going to make a decision whether to charge him or not without statements from everyone present (the key people being Firmino, Holgate, the referee, Lallana and Kenny as they were all right there when the incident took place). It seems likely that the only statements they could have are from Holgate and the referee.

Tuesday unlikely for another reason, the FA are retards

[SB]

It's total madness, but I've heard a few blues making this argument, they seem convinced that is what has happened.

Like they’ve convinced themselves that they’re better than us

[Fosterbloke]

It's hard not to say something because that implies he could be a racist but you don't want to think that so you want to jump to his defence.

Clearly Holgate should have been sent off, it was nothing less than violent conduct.

But there's something that's triggered Holgate and it's unclear from a spectator's perspective so for now, it's worth keeping the powder dry and seeing what happens on Tuesday.

If nothing more than substantial evidence is brought forward, I'll be livid with any ban.

Also, I hope retrospective action is taken against Holgate and the club vigorously pursue it if its not forthcoming.

[Nicey]

What if he genuinely thought that was what Firmino had said?

More generally, I think after the Suarez thing (and wider social issues in the news recently) it should be clear that disbelieving potential victims due to your initial biases is a terrible way to proceed.

Whatever happens there needs to be an investigation into how the referee handled this. Given his location he is the closest there is to a good, unbiased witness. If he heard that he had to have acted there and then.

For me this is how it looked
He had already lost his head from giving the Penalty against him unfairly, it was very soft yet again. So he already had his wheels spinning. Bobby saw him behind him and purposely slowed down to get contact and a free kick in the area. Holgate knew what he was doing and was incensed that another Liverpool player was mugging him off. To which he snapped and pushed him into the advertising boards. Then it all kicked off, he immediately took up a trolling hit me posture, looking at Bobby all the time like What ? What ? What ? … Bobby .. goes off in Portuguese and ends the sentence with PUTA !!!! which even if you don’t speak Portuguese most of us know that’s not a good word … Bobby gets taken away from the scene by our players and the penny drops with Holgate !! he’s called me something bad there .. and he immediately says he called me a ****** , either him innocently thinking Puta was a racial slur or more worryingly thinking hes ****ed up this is my out. Either way I would be gobsmacked if Bobby used the word ****** in anger. Lets be honest, he hasn’t, nobody reacted, if he had you would have had at least some cross looks towards Bobby, the Everton players who were trying for everything in that game would have been all over that like a rash, they weren’t because none of them understood what Bobby said.

I really really hope Holgate gets the book thrown at him, I suspect he wont. Regardless of what has been said, how can he get away with throwing a player into the advertising boards ..at that stage no verbal abuse had happened that was just him as a player, a character reference if you will. ****ehouse.

[topscorer]

A couple of my mates who are blues have been saying that they believe that the referee heard it and told the 4th official and they decided between them that the best course of action was to do nothing on the pitch but to pass it up the chain. The reason for this being that Firmino only gets a 3 match ban for the red card and the issue has been dealt with leaving the FA powerless to act, whereas if the referee does nothing the FA can deal with it properly and impose a more appropriate penalty.



To me this is nonsense and completely wrong if a referee has witnessed the a racist comment he has to impose the harshest penalty that he can at the time (which would be a red card), document it and assist the FA in the following enquiry who will bring additional charges. If he has heard the comment and done nothing then there are serious questions to be answered and he should probably never referee again.



If there are other people backing up Holgate's claim then there are questions to be asked about why the referee didn't hear it and possibly review the use of the microphones the referee wears (I still have no idea if this is recorded or if it is just a means of the ref talking to the 4th official, whether it runs all the time or has to be activated or what).



I'm not sure what the procedure for dealing with these types of allegations are, but assuming that the referee didn't hear anything and therefore there is nothing that he could do in terms of punishment, I assume discussing it with the 4th official is immediately and documenting things as soon as possible is the appropriate thing to do and I think that is what he did.

As far as I remember a red card punishment has been increased from 3 games many times for many different reasons and it's within the power of the FA to do that.

I suspect the referees mic is not recorded but the mic and proximity of the referees means that all 4 officials should have heard everything, not just that referee.

Moving forward I hope they do start recording the referees mic if it's not already and even consider putting mics on all the players.

Let's be clear, if Firmino did utter any racist language and as a club we know he did then WE should throw the book at him and help the FA in every way possible. We should not cover it up and we should not defend him.

However, based on the information currently publicly available I don't think he did and obviously hope he didn't.

Regarding Holgate, I would like to think that he misheard or misunderstood what was said and he only gets retrospectively punished for the second push, which clearly should have been a straight red.

I think it's impossible to know or prove he intentionally made a false accusation and it would not help in the fight against racism to accuse him of doing so. So overall I think it is in everyone's best interest to just drop that line of attack.