Sir Alex Ferguson calls Luis Suarez a "disgrace"..

[Upton]

Sir Alex Ferguson called Luis Suarez a "disgrace" for refusing to shake Patrice Evra's hand before Manchester United's ill-tempered 2-1 victory over Liverpool at Old Trafford.

"Suarez is a disgrace to Liverpool Football Club," said United manager Ferguson. "He should not be allowed to play for Liverpool again. He could have caused a riot."
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"I couldn't believe Suarez refused Evra's handshake," he said. "You saw the referee [Phil Dowd]. He didn't know what to do. It was a terrible start to the game and it created a terrible atmosphere.

"Racism is an important issue and football has come a long way since the days of bananas being thrown at John Barnes."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/16996567

I watched this game on Saturday morning and have since read some of the fallout, and outside of Kenny Dalglish playing innocent by claiming he "never knew Suarez refused to shake Evra's hand", Suarez's actions have been roundly condemned.

If I were Suarez, I would want all this racism stuff to go away as quickly as possible. Now though, he's reignited the controversy..

[HuckleB]

1. I could care less what Ferguson says.

Still, Suarez is an idiot and a disgrace. He's right up there with the attention seeking youtube "shoot the laptop," uh, "father."

[ge26252se]

11. +1

[T_i_B]

2. Suarez and Dalglish have been made to apologise by LFC's owners

Neither of them have done Liverpool FC any favours. Suarez has shown himself to be quite possibly the biggest moron in the Premiership (quite an achievement!) and Dalglish has shown himself up as a fool by his ridiculous attempts to stand by Suarez.

[MrCoffee]

3. Suarez screwed up big time

Just shake the dickheads hand and move on, Luis. Don't be a fool.

[Rambis]

4. Slur alex drunkardson is a fooking farce-

Eric Cantona kicked an opposing fan in the face-He played for manure again.

Ronney swears at the camera calls the ref a fucking wanka 5 times a game! There is this...


Evra He called me a nigger ten times! not true- He doesn't even like to say the word nigger see video below...

Evra called Suarez a "sudaca" derogatory term and made comments about Suarez sister's pussy-

Evra is a scumbag see France at WC

If you use this blue noze twats standards of no handshake then none of these united players above should be on the pitch. I bet Gigsy shook his brothers hand quite a lot while shaggin his wife for 8 years.

[redqueen]

7. Thanks.

That was excellent.

[Ron Obvious]

5. This whole situation has been handled badly

Full Disclosure: Gooner here. No particular stake in the matter.

The stench of burnt sanctimony in the British press about this whole Suarez affair is overpowering. The press actually lap this sort of thing up but have to pretend be outraged and condemn Suarez, even to the point of tarring anyone with the racism brush who dares to defend the man.

If Suarez had been the sort of slick phony who was concerned about his image, he would have given Evra a big hug instead of a handshake. Imagine the reaction if he had done that! He would have been celebrated the world over, and even United fans might have cheered him every time he touched the ball after that. However, he clearly feels genuinely hard done by and, like Wayne Bridge, wasn't ready to let bygones be bygones. Regardless of what you think of the man, I'd rather see a genuine heartfelt snub than an insincere hug.

Personally, I think an 8 match ban was excessive. Seeing how potentially career-ending, bone or skull-crushing fouls and deliberate kicks to the head to prone players are punished with bans half as long as that or less, I find it damn hard to understand how what Suarez did was so much worse.

By all accounts, the man is not a racist but used a word ('Negrito') that's perfectly innocent in his own culture, but which was perceived as worse than it was intended. A simple 2 match ban would have sent a plenty strong message that it wasn't tolerated in England. There was no need to make him a sacrificial lamb.

The outrage over this whole incident is phony in my opinion, and absurd overreactions over trivialities like this do nothing to combat racism. Quite the reverse, I would think.

P.S. Small detail -- look closely at the (non-)handshake incident. I think Evra is lowering his hand just as Suarez comes by. It might well be that Suarez decided to skip him on the spur of the moment because of that.

[Rambis]

6. No one is interested in that detail

it doesn't fit the narrative the English press are pushing at the moment which is Suarez is a racist and liverpool are a racist club for supporting Suarez.

[Upton]

8. I don't know if Suarez is a racist or not..

but he has priors in being an asshole. Here he is when playing for Ajax, biting an PSV Eindhoven player for which the poor misunderstood Luis was suspended for 7 games..

As for the press's criticism of Liverpool... Dalglish, like Suarez, brought a lot of that upon the club himself. His post game support of Suarez which included claiming he didn't know he had refused to shake Evra's hand strained credibility..his apology basically acknowledged as much: “I did not conduct myself in a way befitting of a Liverpool manager during that interview and I’d like to apologize for that.”

Oh, and I'm an Arsenal supporter too...I dislike both clubs, so I'd like to think I'm looking at this as objectively as possible.

[Rambis]

9. Evra says in his statement to the ferguson association he does not believe Suarez is a racist

There are serious questions as to the impartial nature of the panel. Manchester United's Chief Executive, David Gill, is a member of the FA disciplinary committee which dealt with the Suarez/Evra incident. Lord Herman Ouseley is a member of the Manchester United Foundation. This issue is not as cut and dried as the media want to make it.

[mactime]

10. Luis Suarez was railroaded

He has every right not to shake hands with Evra