Despite Luis Suarez being found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra, Gus Poyet has continued to back his countryman, claiming that Evra is “no saint”.
In Liverpool’s official statement about Suarez’s guilty verdict, they falsely claimed that Evra has made unfounded accusations of racism before. The truth is that deaf fans made complaints against Liverpool’s Steve Finan after they believed racial abuse had been directed at Evra and Mike Phelan accused Sam Bethell, a member of Chelsea’s groundstaff, of making racist comments to Evra.
Poyet seems to believe that because it’s acceptable to call people names based on their race it Uruguay, Suarez should be let off.
This of course ignores the fact that Suarez and Evra have never been friends so it would be ludicrous to think the Liverpool striker was using “terms of endearment” during a derby game. The fact that Evra was so visibly worked up by what Suarez was saying to him indicates the fact the Uruguayan knew what he was saying was wrong.
“The ban is incredible, shocking, it’s disproportionate. I back Luis to death,” said Poyet. “Things have happened before with Evra. He is not a saint. He is a controversial player. I don’t know in which world we are going to live in from now on people. People will accuse each other of anything. Suarez just arrivedand there are things that he has to learn when you are in another country because they might be normal in your country but perhaps they are not considered that way in other parts of the world. I have tried to explain that we live with coloured people in Uruguay. We share different experiences with them. We play football, we share parties. We are born, we grow up and we die with them. We call them ’blacks’ in a natural way, even in an affectionate way. That is the way we were brought up. We are integrated and there are no problems from either side. I’ve explained how the Uruguay people and the South Americans experience these situations with coloured people. I’ve been many years in England and I understand them. I know how to deal with it, but Luis has only recently arrived here.”
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