The main talking point of the day has been the FA's decision this week to impose an 8 game ban on Liverpool's Luis Suarez, following a finding of misconduct against for comments made by him to Manchester United's Patrice Evra during the match between the sides on the 15th October 2011.
Much has been said, not all of it entirely accurate, but when in doubt I say one should go direct to the source, so calling up the FA's original statement on their website I noted the following:-
On 16 November 2011, The Football Association charged Luis Suarez with misconduct contrary to FA Rule E3 in relation to the Liverpool FC versus Manchester United FC fixture on 15 October 2011.
A hearing took place from 14-20 December 2011 before an Independent Regulatory Commission of The FA to consider the charge.
The Independent Regulatory Commission announced its decision on 20 December 2011, which is as follows:
- Mr Suarez used insulting words towards Mr Evra during the match contrary to FA Rule E3(1);
- the insulting words used by Mr Suarez included a reference to Mr Evra's colour within the meaning of Rule E3(2);
- Mr Suarez shall be warned as to his future conduct, be suspended for eight matches covering all first team competitive matches and fined the sum of £40,000;
- the [penalty] is suspended pending the outcome of any appeal lodged by Mr Suarez against this decision.
Now the £40,000 fine is barely worth mentioning, given the astronomical salaries that players of Suarez's standing are earning, but opinion is squarely divided on whether the 8 game ban was justified. At the one end there are those that believe that Suarez is being made an example of, and at the other there are those who argue that nothing less than a "zero tolerance" approach to racism in football is acceptable.
For me, several issues emerged from the whole affair.
Firstly, I have to be honest, as an individual Suarez is not my cup of tea. I'd go far as to say he's an annoying little mouthy git.
But labelling a person a "racist", even a person who we generally don't like, is a serious matter. Not only because our society, and indeed our laws, deem racism itself to be a serious matter, thus we should be very careful when making such an allegation, but further because if the term "racist" is to be banded about at every available opportunity, it merely serves to undermine very real racism that ordinary people, far less privileged and far less affluent that Mr Evra, face in the real world.
Secondly, what do we really mean when we call someone a racist? The real problem, surely, is racial discrimination, where a person is treated less favourably by virtue of their race. This is illegal in the vast majority of countries, and rightly so. Likewise, incitement to racial hatred is also an offence in many jurisdictions, where, essentially, threatening words or behaviour are used with the intention of stirring up racial hatred.
The common element is harm. As a collective society, individual freedoms cannot be absolute. The limit on my freedom is, broadly, the point at which the exercise of that freedom causes harm to others. Sometimes the law tolerates a small "overstepping" of the mark, where it is considered that the value in the freedom is so great that a small infringement on another's rights is acceptable, and sometimes the law takes the opposite approach and penalises recklessness, carelessness or attempted (yet incomplete) offences on the basis of potential harm.
No doubt whatever was said to Evra was an unpleasant experience for him. Unpleasant enough to prompt Evra to make the initial complaint. But what was the level of harm? To be clear, I'm not adopting Sepp Blatter's stance and saying that "it's all good fun". What I'm saying is that we need a way to assess the harm, having regard to the context of what was said, the intent, the loss suffered by the person on the receiving end of the remarks, and then we decide what punishment fits the crime.
As it stands, Suarez has received the longest ban for an "on the field" offence that I can remember (contrasting situations such as Rio Ferdinand missing a drugs test and receiving a ban of 8 months). If Suarez had run out onto the field and aimed a strong side kick at Evra's knee, he would have been sent off and received a 3 match ban for violent conduct. The harm to Evra would have been much, much greater, quite possibly ending his career.
Quite clearly then, the powers that be deem it more acceptable to physically injure a player than to insult their background. In football terms, Suarez has effectively been told "You have committed the worst possible crime", and banned for almost three times the number of games that he would have been banned for had he headbutted Evra, punched him in the face, or left him crippled with an irreparable cruciate ligament.
Of course in such cases the criminal law might well step in and other sanctions might be imposed in the Courts, but to the extent that the football authorities mete out their own justice there has to be a logical consistency to the scale of punishments for different offences.
This is all the more puzzling given that the only evidence against Suarez appears to be the testimony of Evra himself, bringing me on to my third point.
If we take the view that Suarez has received an exceptionally strong punishment as a statement of policy, then exceptional punishment must surely require an exceptional standard of proof. There is a big question mark over whether the word of one person over another could even satisfy the civil standard of proof, i.e. the balance of probabilities, let alone satisfying the criminal standard i.e. beyond reasonable doubt, or some other comparable standard appropriate to the contended gravity of the offence.
Apparently no-one else heard the comments else not only would we be looking again at the level of "harm", we would also be in a different situation in terms of evidence. One against one is barely a case to answer, many against one and your number's up.
The chairman of each Independent Regulatory Commission is a legally qualified barrister, which makes this all the more difficult to understand. If anything this leads me to the conclusion that the Commission was under significant pressure from within to make a strong statement here, especially in view of the ongoing embarrassment of the John Terry situation.
This way, the FA have their cake and eat it. Terry is one of their own, their captain, and so it's someone else's decision and whatever happens, happens. That Uruguayan striker on the other hand, who nobody except Liverpool fans really likes, he can be made an example of and the rule book (which is a rather big book) can be quite fully thrown at him.
So here's what will happen. Liverpool will appeal and though the decision will stand, the length of the ban will be reduced. Liverpool and Suarez will claim victory, demonstrating that the initial punishment was disproportionate. Evra and the FA will claim victory, arguing that the decision having been upheld underscores the decision to bring charges at first instance. And so everybody wins, everybody walks away, and the mutual backslapping amongst the football fraternity can begin.
Well, I say everybody, but not quite. The real losers here are the average guys who the morning after something like this, receive a few more sideways glances. Maybe it's the Uruguayan guy that comes into the coffee house every day and who everyone now thinks he's a racist because South American culture has been called into question. Or it might be the Senegalese guy that people down the street are cursing at under their breath because they (rightly or wrongly) see the Evra incident as another example of political correctness gone mad.
The danger with things like this is that inevitably, in order to unite, one has to divide. There is an inherent paradox in that in striving for a world where we do not define people by their skin colour, in order to protect the rights and freedoms of those vulnerable to discrimination we invariably end up defining those people by their skin colour.
An argument between two men in a park becomes an issue of black against white, third parties get involved whether welcomed or not and a justified reaction becomes an unjustified overreaction, and instead of racial tensions being eased, they are merely fuelled. Racism isn't nice, and it isn't right, but before we jump on every available bandwagon I feel we ought to step back and think about whether in the name of good, we are actually the ones doing the harm.
Follow me on Twitter - @Tanel76
Follow me on Twitter - @Tanel76
