Sack Suarez? Get real

FIRST and foremost, no one can defend Luis Suarez’s actions on Sunday afternoon. What he did was unacceptable, embarrassing and deserves punishment. Quite what he was thinking is anyone’s guess.

His apology to Branislav Ivanovic was needed and it is important that he has accepted his actions were incorrect. Criticism was to be expected and rightly so, Suarez has caused all this and must now deal with the consequences.

What is beyond his control but a direct result of his actions is the mind numbingly monotonous faux indignation, exaggeration and calls for him to be banished from English football that is omnipresent right now.

Already the likes of Henry Winter are attempting to put pressure on Liverpool to rid themselves of Luis Suarez and all his baggage. While his actions cannot and should not be defended, it is hard not to find the reaction to all of this quite laughable.

We are of course, in the 24 hour news age where outrage, hyperbole and indignation are always high on the agenda. The universal criticism for Suarez’s actions is understandable but the rhetoric used is almost hilarious especially when you consider the double standards of many of the commentators dishing out judgement.

Moments after the conclusion of the game on Sunday, Graeme Souness got the ball rolling on Sky Sports. A wonderful player in his time, Souness was equally as famed (and revered to this day) for his propensity to throw in potentially leg breaking horror tackles (and the odd punch) on his opponents. He described Suarez’s bite on Ivanovic as one of the worst things he’d seen in football.

Call me strange but I’d rather have a love bite on my shoulder than a fractured fibula. Graeme Souness went further still when he suggested that Suarez’s actions were even more reprehensible given the proximity of the striker’s act to the anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy and the recent death of the heroic Anne Williams.

For a man who is roundly detested on Merseyside for his irresponsible actions in regards to Hillsborough to provide such a comment was frankly sickening. By all means attack Suarez for what he had done, but some semblance of common sense and self awareness is surely required.

In the aftermath of Sunday’s game there has been a succession of ‘experts’ chipping in with their moral outrage and suggesting that Liverpool should seek to rid themselves of Suarez’s services as soon as possible. Henry Winter practically demanded as much in his match report for the Telegraph and the likes of Alan Mullary have gone on Sky Sports News to express their disgust at the bite and plead for him to be sacked or sold.

On all levels, this is just over the top ridiculousness.
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First of all, how many players have done comparable things to Suarez and gone on with their careers? Eric Cantona famously kicked a spectator and managed to ride out the media storm that surrounded that particular incident before cementing his place as a Manchester United legend. If you think that Alex Ferguson thought about selling his best player back then for one moment then I submit that you are deluded.

El-Hadji Diouf has fired more phlegm at people than Spit the Dog and yet still plies his trade in English football. In most quarters he is seen as a pantomime villain. And then we move on to the English players who never suffered anywhere near these levels of vitriol from the press despite similar acts.

In 2006 Jermaine Defoe did exactly what Luis Suarez did on Sunday. He bit an opponent on the shoulder. His punishment? A yellow card. No calls for his club to sell him (his manager laughed the incident off), no demands for his sacking, no 24 hour news coverage detailing his every move. The upstanding FA did even not give him a retrospective ban, hiding, as ever, behind the notion that because the referee had given the player a booking they were powerless to take any further action.

If biting incites such dismay and fury in our nation’s writers, analysts, television personalities and ex-football players, where oh where was the backlash against Defoe seven years ago?

Ah, but Suarez is a serial offender people say. He’s done many abhorrent things in his career and this must be held against him. He deserves more punishment than others because of his past. The FA are likely to take this into account also (off the record of course) but again we can refer to the exploits of a serial offender who also happens to be English and received somewhat more favourable and less damning judgement on numerous occasions.

Wayne Rooney, off the top of my head has stamped on a player’s genitals, elbowed an opponent in the head, kicked a rival with full force in the leg and repeatedly screamed ‘fuck off’ down a camera lens during a live televised match, as well as at officials in almost every game he’s ever played.

Strange then, that at no point can I remember people lining up to demand that Rooney not be selected for England or that Alex Ferguson jettisons the England star. Strange also that when he received a totally just three match international ban for booting an opponent while on duty for England, the Football Association found it ethical to send a team of lawyers out to FIFA to beg for his ban to be reduced, which it subsequently was. I find it hard to recall the media’s outrage at such double standards from the FA back then.

You see, bringing morality and such extreme rhetoric into a game such as football is dangerous and can often make you look a fool. There are always numerous examples of double standards from players, managers, press men and even the games governing bodies.

Sometimes it’s best to just take things on their merits, discuss what happened, deal with them and move on. Luis Suarez was in the wrong on Sunday and deserves to be punished. Decisive action from his club, and the player himself have thankfully been forthcoming and so too will the FA’s reaction.

Credit must be given to Liverpool for decisively responding with a statement that denounced Suarez’s actions and the subsequent fine they imposed on him. The player apologised publicly and the PFA have offered counselling as a means to correcting his poor conduct.

This is all positive and necessary. What isn’t required at this time is the foolish, ill thought out hypocritical diatribes that many people are embarrassing themselves with.
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