Former Chelsea and Spurs player, who is currently the manager of Brighton & Hove Albion, Gus Poyet, has launched a remarkable attack on Patrice Evra, who the FA believe is the victim of racial abuse.
This week, Luis Suarez was charged with verbally abusing Evra during the recent game between United and Liverpool. Suarez has admitted he has called Evra a name in Spanish but denies that it was racist. Some rumours suggest the word used was “negro”.
Poyet has today claimed that when he was playing in Spain he received a lot of racist abuse because of where he was from but he never spoke out about it, so Evra shouldn’t either.
“I played football for seven years in Spain and was called everything because I was from South America,” he said. “I never went out crying like a baby, like Patrice Evra, saying that someone said something to me. I’m surprised, in a really sad way, that he’s been charged. It’s really sad. I think it’s worse to charge someone because you trust one person when you have no proof. I’m really sad about this charge because it’s going to become too easy. I can make a complaint about any opposition manager and if I take it as far as I can he’s going to get charged. Why are we going to take one person’s word over another’s? It’s too risky.”
It is quite incredible that a football manager in this country could claim that if a player speaks out about racist abuse that they are being a “cry baby”.
I’m assuming it’s just pure ignorance which has lead Poyet to believe that the FA don’t have any evidence to charge Suarez with. If Suarez did say what has been rumoured, the only proof the FA need is Suarez’s own statement.
The recent race rows have allowed all sorts of people, fans and players alike, to come crawling out of the woodwork and expose themselves for what they really are. Poyet is just the latest example and I’d like to think the fans of his club are ashamed of his stance on kicking racism out of football, or not kicking it out, in his case.
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