FA UNFAIR TO SUAREZ, SAYS HIS BOSS.

The appalling and disgusting behaviour of Liverpool's Luis Suarez has been matched by the utterly self-serving responses from a number of other footballng figures.

 

Among others, the Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers, has expressed his unhappiness with the punishment handed out by the FA for Suarez's actions. A 10-match ban, says Rodgers, is punishment "against the man rather than the incident". He's gone on to add the "We have a punishment with no intention of helping behaviour". What planet this moron lives on is open to debate but I suggest it's one inhabited by those whose entire world is ruled by football and footballers, rather than one in which the rest of society lives.

 

Suarez was not guilty of making a bad tackle and nor was he provoked into throwing a punch; he very deliberately and wholly gratuitously took hold of an opponent's arm and bit it. Shockingly, this was not the first time he's done such a thing and his previous punishment was a 7-match ban. Subsequent to that incident, he was found guilty of 'racially abusing' an opponent, an offence for which he received an 8-match ban. Along the way, he seems to have been more than happy to cheat, Maradonna-style, by using his hands in the penalty area.

 

For Rodgers and others to claim that the FA is now being 'unfair' is risible. Suarez has more than enough 'previous' to demonstrate that fines and talkings-to have no effect; of course the FA is punishing him, it was, after all, he who perpetrated his disgusting action and to suggest that the offender and the offence can somehow be separated and treated differently is incomprehensible. It is also a natural course for second and subsequent offences to be punished more harshly than the first and this is what the FA has done.

 

The behaviour of Suarez was a shocking disgrace and, in my view, he should be banned for good. The behaviour of those such as his manager in claiming that his actions were pretty minor and not worthy of serious punishment sends a message to younger supporters that this type of violence is acceptable; how long will it be before little Jimmy takes a lump out of the arm of young Bobby in the local park ? When Jimmy tells his dad that he only did what Suarez did and it wasn't really serious, what will his dad say ? What will Bobby's dad say when Jimmy's dad tells him it wasn't serious and he should forget it ?

 

Football may be our principal national sport but it's not beyond the laws of the country nor the morality of society, even if many of its players and representatives believe it to be so. It is time for proper action to be taken to correct this flawed view.