PATRICE EVRA, the Manchester United defender at the centre of the Luis Suarez racism case, has been accused of overreacting and “crying like a baby” in an astonishing attack by Gus Poyet, a friend of the Liverpool striker.
Poyet’s condemnation flies in the face of the Kick It Out campaign’s instruction for footballers to report anything they consider to be racial slurs. But the Brighton manager believes Suarez has been harshly treated and his dismay about his fellow Uruguayan being charged by the Football Association manifested itself in an angry outburst about the behaviour of the alleged victim.
“I believe Luis Suarez, it’s simple,” Poyet said. “I played football for seven years in Spain and was called everything because I was from South America, and I never went out crying like a baby, like Patrice Evra, saying someone had said something to me.”
Poyet, who has befriended Suarez since the striker moved to Liverpool from Ajax in January, is not convinced the FA have enough evidence to warrant a charge of using racial insults. Suarez has categorically denied the allegations and will plead not guilty.
“I’m surprised, in a really sad way, that he has been charged,” Poyet said. “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 as it’s going to become too easy. I can make a complaint about any 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? It’s too risky.”
Those comments will go down badly at Old Trafford and may provoke the United manager, Alex Ferguson, into making a response when he holds his weekly press briefing today. Evra, who alleges he was called a variation of the N-word “at least 10 times”, has decided not to comment until the case is heard.
Poyet, whose playing career includes spells at Real Zaragoza, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, appeared to be stating a case that Evra should never have made a complaint. However, he contradicted that view when asked about the Fifa president Sepp Blatter’s comments that victims of racial slurs should shake hands with their abusers at the end of matches and not take the matter further. “I respect him as Fifa president but I don’t listen to him when he talks about football,” he said.
Liverpool will have the backing of the Uruguayan FA to help Suarez fight the allegations that have left him open to a long ban and reinforced Kenny Dalglish’s view that the authorities are threatening to “walk all over us”.
Suarez returned from international duty to go straight into talks with Dalglish, Liverpool’s manager, about the FA’s decision to charge him. Dalglish reiterated that the striker has the club’s backing and officials in Montevideo want the help of the Uruguay embassy in London to back Suarez’s argument that the words Evra reported would not be considered offensive in parts of South America.
GuardianService
