January 2012

[Sweder]

I agree to some extent with EG on this and readily accept I find the whole Scouse Victimhood approach a bit of a smokescreen. What surprised me was that the BBC devoted a good half hour of air time to it today and that the club simply say 'it's one man's word against another'. It isn't - Suarez confirmed what was said. Mark Lawrenson, certainly no United fan, condemned the whole T-shirt support thing at Wigan as 'ill advised'. Had Suarez said what he did to Chris Samba perhaps Liverpool would have told him to apologise and move on. Once he'd regained consciousness, obviously.

I totally accept the different cultural connetations of the word and that in South America it crops up in daily parlance, possibly in Spain, too. So do many things now unacceptable in Britain. When Lewis Hamilton took to the track in Spain a few years ago some Spanish fans dressed in ape masks and wore t-shirts with 'Hamilton's Family' written on them. Perfectly OK in Spain but that'll win you a trip to court in London before you can make a monkey chant.

Of more interest to me now is the pending case against John Terry. From what I've seen Suarez v Evra was handbags compared to the tirade of ugliness spat towards Anton Ferdinand.