Football 2011-2012

[eFestivals]

Paul McGrath: "As an ex-footballer having experienced racist comments throughout my career I was saddened to see Liverpool players wear those t-shirts last night. I would have been much happier if they had worn anti-racism t-shirts."

Liverpool getting a lot of bad press about the tshirts and their reaction in general. Rightly so.

I laughed when I read of the shirts last night, just because it's the sort of siege mentality that's so loved by footie clubs (and one loves that sort of thing far more than Liverpool :lol).

But McGarth is dead right, anti-racism shirts would have been far better for an anti-racism message. They'd have also shown far more class from LFC, and allowed things to move on in a calmer manner.

But would it have changed the chants last night from the Wigan fans, and what's going to be heard at other grounds for weeks and months to come? Not a jot.

So while I can't commend Liverpool for those shirts a statement of supposed unity like that is hardly surprising, and is pretty much par for the course within football.

I say "supposed unity" because I'm not comfortable with that being club-led (which it looked like it was). Fair enough if the players want to express their support for Suarez on an individual basis, but by being club-led there's the possibility that players have been co-erced into supporting something they'd rather not support.

[Wooderson]

Paul McGrath: "As an ex-footballer having experienced racist comments throughout my career I was saddened to see Liverpool players wear those t-shirts last night. I would have been much happier if they had worn anti-racism t-shirts."

Liverpool getting a lot of bad press about the tshirts and their reaction in general. Rightly so.

Also found Kennys "Lets not let him walk alone" comment quite nauseating in a cringing type of way. You'll Never Walk Alone is the club motto. We get it!! Like a WWE catchphrase.

Unless the ban is scratched, the fine is wiped and Suarez is found 100% innocent on appeal (not going to happen), Suarez, Daglish and the entire club are going to be left looking very silly.

[eFestivals]

ffs... Neil at his argumentative best...

what you really mean is at his accurate best, and not your invented from nothing bollocks.

Or are you going to show me where it says "totally reversed"?

Nope, you're not, because it doesn't. Shut the fuck up with your lies to hide your self-inflicted stupidity.

[The Nal]

Silly at best!

Edited December 22, 2011 by The Nal

[eFestivals]

</bored of ignorance & stupidity about Suarez now>

Has anyone seen the thing on MUTV of the club's xmas party? I've not, but I've heard about it.

Was fergie serious when he said to Rooney "you'll pay for that" or was he joking?

Edited December 22, 2011 by eFestivals

[Wooderson]

People have to accept that there was a trade off to be made here and LFC staff/players made a decision. Support the player specifically and defiantly in expectation of the critiscm about tribalism that would create or make an anti-racism stand that some would call "classy" but others would call blasé or worse - rank hypocracy. Not an easy call lads. I thought they did the right thing. There are other days for a broader message to resonate - this was a statement to show comradeship with a team-mate.

[The Nal]

</bored of ignorance & stupidity about Suarez now>

Has anyone seen the thing on MUTV of the club's xmas party? I've not, but I've heard about it.

Was fergie serious when he said to Rooney "you'll pay for that" or was he joking?

[eFestivals]

Reina coming out and saying "hes a lovely guy and 8 games is not fair"?!!?!

Yes it fucking is Pepe. If, repeat, if, the FA have hard evidence. Which nobody knows yet.

to be fair to him, he probably knows most of the fine detail of the hearing.

Exactly why Daglish looks a total penis here. He hasn't even read the FA's report yet!!

Same applies with Dalglish - he'll certainly know far more of it than we do, even without having the reasons for why the panel reached the decision they did.

[Wooderson]

Why didn't they just say "We will be making no further comments at this time" and deal with it internally? They could support the player without exposing the club like that.

[eFestivals]

First I've heard of it. Elaborate please.

they were having a game of charades.

Rooney had to do Beckham. First he drew a number 7 in the air, but no one got it. Then he did something else (I forget what) and no one got it.

So then he pointing at fergie, made a kicking action, and then pointed at his eye-brow. They got it.

Fergie said "you'll pay for that".

What I don't know is whether fergie was laughing along or annoyed.

It's on MUTV apparently.

Edited December 22, 2011 by eFestivals

[The Nal]

Same applies with Dalglish - he'll certainly know far more of it than we do, even without having the reasons for why the panel reached the decision they did.

[The Nal]

Feel so passionately "wronged" by it I spose chief. I'd do the same for you for example.

[Wooderson]

Hes not a racist, fine. Thats not what he was charged with though.

[The Nal]

Heres the Rooney charade

Very good to be fair.

[Wooderson]

Maybe he should of just kept his mouth shut and kicked the football...

[eFestivals]

The statement they released was pre prepared. Was defo drafted before the FAs announcement. Its was very aggressive. They even had to take out the bit about Evra "having a history of false accusations" or whatever they said.

hmmm, there's two possibilities with that which occur to me....

1. they got advance notice of the verdict from the public announcement, which gave them time to put something together.

2. that they got no advance notice and had put nothing together beforehand, and so rushed the statement they made driven by their anger at the verdict - which would explain why an ill-advised comment about Evra was included.

And it didnt even defend the charges. Hes not a racist, fine. Thats not what he was charged with though.

the strong implication of the charge - the very reason that rule exists at all - is one of racism.

So them concentrating on that angle seems fair enough. I think if I were Suarez and really feeling innocent as he supposedly does I'd be more concerned about what the charge implies by being found guilty rather than the actual fact of being found guilty (if you see what I mean by that?).

If, for instance, he'd been found guilty and been banned for just one game instead, then they'd be able to point to the one other racism case that the FA had dealt with where they gave a three match ban and say "he's technically guilty of the offence, but the punishment gets to show that it's as minor a breech as it can get, cos although he used language which referred to skin colour and broke the rules by doing so, the punishment gets to show it's something lesser than racism".

[eFestivals]

Maybe he should of just kept his mouth shut and kept on kicking Evra...

Yes.

[The Nal]

Maybe he should of just kept his mouth shut and kicked the football...

[eFestivals]

Heres the Rooney charade

Very good to be fair.

excellent.

[eFestivals]

I think people are forgetting that this didn't just appear out of the thin air. Its a Suarez made problem 100%.

except of course it's only that if all that Evra has alleged is how it was. In fact it only takes a slight alteration by Evra from how things supposedly were to make this 'problem'.

While I get that sometimes it takes thinking something over before you act on it and that might be why Evra said nothing to ref on the pitch when the ref called them over to speak to him, I'm still somewhat confused why he'd need to do that if the allegation of 'ten times' was true, because my take on things is that most of those must have happened before they were called to the ref.

One instance I might think over and decide later that it was a big enough thing to pursue, but i'd have thought a number of times was a big enough thing at the time that it didn't need thinking over - but of course that comes down to the person, and what sort of inter-player abuse might go on as standard.

[thetime]

</bored of ignorance & stupidity about Suarez now>

Has anyone seen the thing on MUTV of the club's xmas party? I've not, but I've heard about it.

Was fergie serious when he said to Rooney "you'll pay for that" or was he joking?

Edited December 22, 2011 by thetime

[The Nal]

So the question is, will AVB and the Chelsea players be wearing John Terry tshirts later?

[kaosmark2]

So the question is, will AVB and the Chelsea players be wearing John Terry tshirts later?

[eFestivals]

I'd happily wear a John Terry getting kicked in the head in prison shirt.

Isn't it great that Suarez and Terry are such a despicable human beings for possibly being racist?

[The Nal]

Isn't it great that Suarez and Terry are such a despicable human beings for possibly being racist?