Former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has hit back at Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher for his recent comments on the infamous Luis Suarez-Patrice Evra T-shirt incident.
Carragher confessed to Sky Sports on Monday that he and his teammates made a ‘massive mistake’ wearing T-shirts supporting Suarez in 2011 after the Uruguayan was accused of directing racist language towards Evra, something he was later charged with.
Ferdinand wasn’t overly impressed by Carragher’s sentiments: “That’s eight years late,” he told BT Sport. “Testament to Jamie Carragher for apologising eight years after the incident…
“It’s bigger than Jamie Carragher, it’s a club. Liverpool let themselves down that day by wearing the T-shirts in support of someone accused of racist comments. Eight years on and still the apology hasn’t come from Liverpool in that sense.”
"Testament to Jamie Carragher for apologising eight years after the incident."
"Liverpool let themselves down that day wearing the t-shirts"@rioferdy5, @GaryLineker, Owen Hargreaves and Joe Hart discuss racism in football, with Rio drawing example from Suarez and Evra in 2011. pic.twitter.com/lkMkrJPv8z
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) October 22, 2019
OPINION
This is a bit of complicated subject, obviously, but something we can surely all agree on is that the Liverpool players absolutely shouldn’t have worn those T-shirts. Yes, they were perhaps trying to support their teammate who was going through adversity, but you cannot do something like that when somebody has been accused of racism. Plus, Suarez had already had his fair share of controversy throughout his career, making the squad’s refusal to admit he may have made racist comments all the more inexcusable. It’s good that Carragher owned up to his personal mistake in going along with what the squad did in regards to the T-shirts but, as Ferdinand says, it’s eight years too late. This acknowledgement shouldn’t have only just arrived now in late 2019, and Ferdinand’s assertion that we still haven’t had any sort of apology from Liverpool as a club is shocking. With racism so prevalent in football right now it’s no surprise that this has all come back up, and it’s not a shock that Ferdinand is clearly still upset with the Reds.
