wacko

But that's terribly shaky ground to be basing a ruling upon. The absolute essence of the matter is that what Evra (claims he) heard is not what Suarez (claims he) said, even though both agree on which word was used. And how can an English body be qualified to fairly and reasonably judge a Frenchman's interpretation of a South American Spanish word? And how does that make it less bad for those poor overweight/ginger/illegitimate sods who are copping all that stick? Yeah, I'm biased: I spent the whole of grammar school with the nickname "Northern Bastard" (thanks Hale and Pace). It wasn't used affectionately, and while the teachers didn't use that particular name, they often ribbed me about my origins, too (What did he say? I don't understand him! I think you mean <insert word that southerners pronounce differently>.) Not as bad as "black bastard" by any stretch, to be sure, but I will never understand or accept why this kind of shit is seen as perfectly acceptable, when it would never have crossed the minds of any of those kids or teachers to openly call one of the Asian or black guys in our year "brown/black bastard". All personal abuse is bad and can cause pain, I'm not arguing against that. And it shouldn't be seen as acceptable at all, obviously. I'm just saying that abusing someone by suggesting their ethnic origin is inferior to yours is a much more fundamental form of belittling them, and is also supporting with generations and generations of oppression. I cant believe you equate the two so exactly. What? Can't help it It really gets my goat that an English "authority" intends to pass judgement on the Spanish language based on a Frenchman's understanding of it. And the whole of Uruguay is probably buzzing off them. Juan: Hey my sweet little darling! Maria: Don't call me that, you filthy racist cur! I'll report you to Bobby Charlton! FFS, we all know he's a cunt, so give him a slap on the wrist for gamesmanship, make it clear that books will be thrown if he uses the word (or other variations) again, and stop this farce.

Double-edged sword, though. Now with the group stages, it's effectively as demanding as the CL on your squad, but with none of the money or cachet. Now you need a much better squad to take the Europa League seriously and not lose a lot of ground in the league. IMO, if they're going to continue with two group-stage-based competitions, they should do away with the x-places-per-country rules in the CL, and assign both CL and EL places by team rankings. That way, there'll be fewer mismatches in both competitions. Every year a bunch of national champions get dumped into the CL 1st qualifying round with about zero chance of ever reaching the group stage (it's only happened once, I think). If you've not been in a European competition recently, the deck is really stacked against you. Much fairer to put you in a competition where you stand a decent chance of winning a few games and improving your UEFA ranking. Also, EL winner should get automatic CL place the following season.

Possibly? Probably? Almost certainly? There's no way of knowing, which is I think it would be grossly unfair to punish him for racism. It's also quite possible that Suarez's version of events is true. I'm sure he threw all manner of insults at Evra, and appears nonplussed that Evra took offense at what Suarez considers to be the least offensive word he used (i.e. "mate"). His intentions cannot be known, and that's critical to determining whether it was racist or not. At any rate, he knows now, and by all means, throw the book at him if he says it again. Can you use the words "sexy bitch", "puto", "bastard" or any other term of endearment in whatever language context, in a professional office meeting between 2 companies? Can't imagine an account executive standing up to present a sales pitch starting out with "Alright then you sexy bitches/putos/bastards, here's what we can do for YOU"! Bottom line, it's unprofessional regardless of the context. The extent of punishment is the only thing to debate here. Which is a perfectly valid argument *if* you're dead against any kind of sledging/banter in football games, and you think players should conduct themselves on the pitch as directors should in the boardroom. This doesn't, however, appear to be a common attitude. In fact, the only case of a player copping criticism for non-racist abuse of an opponent I can think of was the Zidane/Materazzi incident.

And how does that make it less bad for those poor overweight/ginger/illegitimate sods who are copping all that stick? Yeah, I'm biased: I spent the whole of grammar school with the nickname "Northern Bastard" (thanks Hale and Pace). It wasn't used affectionately, and while the teachers didn't use that particular name, they often ribbed me about my origins, too (What did he say? I don't understand him! I think you mean <insert word that southerners pronounce differently>.) Not as bad as "black bastard" by any stretch, to be sure, but I will never understand or accept why this kind of shit is seen as perfectly acceptable, when it would never have crossed the minds of any of those kids or teachers to openly call one of the Asian or black guys in our year "brown/black bastard".

Possibly? Probably? Almost certainly? There's no way of knowing, which is I think it would be grossly unfair to punish him for racism. It's also quite possible that Suarez's version of events is true. I'm sure he threw all manner of insults at Evra, and appears nonplussed that Evra took offense at what Suarez considers to be the least offensive word he used (i.e. "mate"). His intentions cannot be known, and that's critical to determining whether it was racist or not. At any rate, he knows now, and by all means, throw the book at him if he says it again.

Because I never fail to wonder in situations like this that all other kinds of abuse, be they based on size, nationality, parentage etc., are entirely ignored if there is anything that can be interpreted as having racial connotations, regardless of how tenuous. That's a good one. But they're not straw men. I'm just emphasising the fact that words based around "black" are not inherently racist by giving some English examples that everyone knows, and hopefully agrees on. Naturally, the same goes for other languages. Particularly unfortunate in this case is that the Spanish word for black is itself a racist term in English.

Then I'll try to condense. Unequivocally, Suarez addressed Evra with "negrito". This is not inherently, or even most probably, a racist slur. (Folks that speak more than one language will understand; those who don't might not. There is very often not a one-to-one correspondence of a word in one language to a word in another, especially when you consider surrounding connotations as well.) Depending on your agenda, you could translate "negrito" into English as any of (from most negative to most positive): niglet little negro little black man little black one mate darling There are no *objective* grounds for punishment. Suarez said "mate"; Evra heard "little black man" or even "niglet"; both players are correct. The fact that Suarez is a bit of a cunt notwithstanding, the worst they can fairly do is tell Suarez not to use the word again.

And there's no actual reason he should be raising the matter of Evra's size or gender, either, is there? But all you can see is that, horror of horrors, he mentioned the man's skin colour. Except it's not even clear that he did. He used a word that means "mate" or "darling" to a Uruguayan, but literally means "little black one". Demeaning and patronising, or perhaps insulting and infuriating is almost certainly what Suarez was aiming for. It generally is the goal of sledging and seems well in character (I'm in no way trying to deny that he's a cunt: I'd despise him if he played for someone else). But that's not the same as racist. Perhaps it was a calculated application of a word intended to cause offense in the knowledge that he had a pretty solid defence for using it should he get caught. But we have no way of knowing what his intention was, so we can't know whether he said "mate" or "little black man". Suarez *must* be given the benefit of the doubt. He claims he said "mate"; Evra claims he heard "little black man". And they're both correct. Think this is the most impotant point TBH. Even if Suarez didn't "mean to be racist", why is he even thinking to notice and comment on Evra's colour as the first thing to have a go at him about? And when he instinctively thought of it, why didn't he use his reason to stop himself actually saying it? At the least that terms strikes me as incredibly patronising and demeaning when used by an opponent especially. Except it's not even a point. It is not at all clear (and never will be) that he did mention Evra's colour. Everyone is claiming it must be racist word he used derives from "negro", meaning "black" (possibly with a good measure of Suarez-is-a-cunt thrown in). But that means nothing. Is "black market" racist? Or "blackmail"? What about "brownout"? Film noir? Is calling someone cowardly "yellow" a racial slur? Do they have anything at all to do with skin colour? No? But any Spanish word related to "negro" must be racist? Has nobody asked themselves why a word that means "darling" would also be a racial slur?

No, they probably shouldn't. But it doesn't make them racist if they do. Stupid? Perhaps. A bit of a cock? Well, we all know Suarez is that. If we accept that it was "ignorant-racist", as you put it, who is actually being ignorant? We have a bunch of people who don't speak Spanish passing judgement on whether or not a Spanish word is racist. These people are not qualified to make that judgement.

I think as far as evidence goes, it's very much Evra's word against Suarez's. That said, Suarez doesn't deny that he used Spanish N-words to Evra; he denies that they are racist or offensive (which is realistically the case). http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/16/luis-suarez-liverpool-fa-racism I've no idea how well Evra understands Spanish. He will certainly have got the gist of anything Suarez said, but it's unlikely that he's familiar with the nuances of South American Spanish. I think the most probable truth of it is that Suarez used a word or words that Uruguayans don't consider to have racial connotations, which Evra, for lack of familiarity with idiomatic Uruguayan, understood as racist. If that is the case (and you are not generally anti-"banter"), I think the worst you can accuse Suarez of is a poor choice of words (or perfect choice of words, depending on your attitude to him). You can't go around punishing people for using words that sound like bad words. Especially foreign words that sound like bad words in a different language. Huuuuuge can of worms. what on earth are you talking about? Racism is about making an issue of someone's skin colour/ethnic origin/other things. Suarez had no need to mention it at all on a football pitch. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Racism is treating someone's skin colour (or other genetic race marker) as a *negative* thing. Mentioning someone's skin colour is not automatically racist. If that were the case, then Suarez should be up on charges of sexism and sizeism for mentioning Evra's height and gender, too. Absolutely. Lots of words can be offensive depending upon the context in which they are used. I've no doubt that on a football pitch, in the heat of battle, 'negrito' will not have been used affectionately. I suppose it's all a matter of perspective. Do you punish Suarez on the basis that Evra found it personally offensive, or do you punish him on the basis that he crossed a line which 9 from 10 people would find universally unacceptable? Of course it wasn't used affectionately, but that doesn't mean it was intended as a racist comment. From Wikipedia: So, it means "mate" or "darling". Suarez called Evra "nigga", Evra heard "nigger". Absolutely. Lots of words can be offensive depending upon the context in which they are used. I've no doubt that on a football pitch, in the heat of battle, 'negrito' will not have been used affectionately. I suppose it's all a matter of perspective. Do you punish Suarez on the basis that Evra found it personally offensive, or do you punish him on the basis that he crossed a line which 9 from 10 people would find universally unacceptable? And this is the heart of it. You can't accuse a person of racism for offence taken by someone else to a comment they don't fully understand. If a black person takes offense at being described as "niggardly", that's largely their problem for not understanding the word. The worst you can accuse the person using the word of is a (deliberately) bad choice of words. Not racism. Europe is not one uniform place. Racism is endemic in places like Italy and Spain (hell, they even had the national basketball team pulling slanty eyes for an official photo before the Beijing olympics). It's a big problem in East Germany, too. The UK, on the other hand, is over-sensitive to racism and sees it everywhere, often to the detriment of other forms of discrimination/prejudice. This I can understand.

Except that's the parallel you draw based on your understanding it to mean "little black man". It's not clear that Uruguayans understand it that way, even though that's clearly what it means. Firstly, people don't think about their own language the same way others do. I mean, how many English people are conscious of sodomy when calling their kids "little buggers" or "little sods", that when they say "berk", they're saying "cunt", or that referring to a disabled person as an "invalid" was literally saying that they are not a valid person? Secondly, does it actually mean "little black man" in terms of wider connotations? (I don't know Spanish.) Or is it closer to "little n****r" or "little African-American"? That's really important because I think it's pushing it calling it racist when, like you say, he called a little black man a little black man.

I think as far as evidence goes, it's very much Evra's word against Suarez's. That said, Suarez doesn't deny that he used Spanish N-words to Evra; he denies that they are racist or offensive (which is realistically the case). http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/16/luis-suarez-liverpool-fa-racism I've no idea how well Evra understands Spanish. He will certainly have got the gist of anything Suarez said, but it's unlikely that he's familiar with the nuances of South American Spanish. I think the most probable truth of it is that Suarez used a word or words that Uruguayans don't consider to have racial connotations, which Evra, for lack of familiarity with idiomatic Uruguayan, understood as racist. If that is the case (and you are not generally anti-"banter"), I think the worst you can accuse Suarez of is a poor choice of words (or perfect choice of words, depending on your attitude to him). You can't go around punishing people for using words that sound like bad words. Especially foreign words that sound like bad words in a different language. Huuuuuge can of worms.

Me, too. Until it's them standing in the way of our long-overdue league victory. Not holding breath.

Man, that was some midfield. Why Rafa ever considered selling Alonso, I'll never understand.

Fair enough then. Can't remember about that tbh. Still can't remember them being as dominant as City are at the moment. You don't remember bottom-half sides sending out the reserves against Chelsea in the league because they wanted to rest their best players for games they thought they could win?

It will never be an existential threat, but it certainly reduces what they can spend on the squad.

Definitely the most supported club in the world, but then they do have incredible debt repayments to meet... those debts are nothing the club itself incured though just the owners using the clubs money to buy it (which really should be against some law) I know, but I think if the owners hadn't bought them, I don't think they'd have as many supporters as they do now... Give over. The Glazers have been nothing but a millstone around their neck. That they've been able to service that debt and still fund the side is astounding, especially considering the financial situation of most other top-division sides, home and abroad. The only comparable club in financial terms I can think of is Bayern.

I doubt it, if only on account of the rotten grammar and number of errors that wouldn't have got past the editor of a published book. Could well be paraphrased, but he's always posting stuff like that. Some of it seems very similar from what I remember of the book. He breaks down each part of what makes a left footed player unique. Its not a very good book. Oh right. That would fit then.

I doubt it, if only on account of the rotten grammar and number of errors that wouldn't have got past the editor of a published book. Could well be paraphrased, but he's always posting stuff like that.

It's practically his raison d'être.

Anyone able to make sense of this? Do you think we have the essence of the foot? The mackems have the essence of the bum. As soon as I read that, I knew it was Socratease. I never understand what on earth he is going on about. I suspect "he" is a football version of this.

They probably haven't been here We're *always* here. That kind of attitude pisses me off more than just saying they're shit tbh, I hate the way that mentality is seemingly ingrained into English football. It's no different anywhere else, tbh.

This one was pretty bizarre. But fuck me, has he spunked a lot on City.

I haven't seen the game yet, but he definitely deserved to be sent off. No way Suarez is a cheat. That whole handball business happened ages before he signed for us.

Still buying the Sun, though, isn't it? Which is kind of the point. The way I figure it, it'll probably cost them money for every voucher used. But I still wouldn't buy the Sun. Mind you, boycotting stuff is practically my hobby.