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Suarez apologises for ‘negro’ comment, but not to Evra

Comment: 0 January 5th, 2012 by: admin

LIVERPOOL’S Luis Suarez recently issued a general apology to anyone who was offended by his use of the world ‘negro’ during his confrontation with Manchester United’s Patrice Evra.

Suspended for a total of 8 matches for his comment, Suarez insisted that he meant no offence when he used that word.

However, a noticeable aspect of his public apology was the lack of a mention of Patrice Evra, who had accused him of racism as a result of their clash during their 1-1 draw a few months ago.  Evra insisted that Suarez insulted him 10 times.

‘I admitted to the commission that I said a word in Spanish once, and only once, and I told the panel members that I will not use it again on a football pitch in England,’ said Suarez.

The 24-year old, along with a number of Uruguayan football players had insisted that their language has had a tendency of being misinterpreted and seen as offensive by those who do not speak it.

‘I never, ever used this word in a derogatory way and if it offends anyone then I want to apologise for that.’

The apology comes as an attempt by Suarez and Liverpool to somehow put an end to the entire issue, after withdrawing from their earlier plans of filing an appeal for the player’s suspension.

Despite the club’s acceptance of the sentence, and Suarez’s public apology, Liverpool maintain that the resulting verdict came from the Football Association’s flawed disciplinary system, and by the harsh, confrontational and accusatory comment that came from Liverpool about the issue.

Another speculated factor was the FA’s attempt to showcase their aggressiveness and ‘zero tolerance’ in the issue of racial abuse.

The final report on the issue however stated that Suarez uttered the word seven times, while United manager Alex Ferguson insisted it was used five times.

According to Anfield representatives, an inconsistency in the report was the lack of mention of the discrepancy in the number of times the word was actually used – something that they think should have been considered an inconsistency of evidence.

Furthermore, Liverpool pointed out that Evra’s first statement accused Suarez of using the world ‘nigger’, which carried a weightier racist undertone compared to ‘negro’.

Also, the squad remain discontent by the fact that Evra was not penalised after admitting that he also used verbally insulting language to Suarez.

Suarez’s suspension has already dealt major damage on the Reds, who fell to Manchester City 3-0 Tuesday night.

They will also be without the striker in a number of other EPL matches, plus the FA cup competition and the double-legged Carling Cup faceoff, also against City.

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