Soccer:Liverpool's Luis Suarez gave "unreliable" and "inconsistent" evidence to the commission investigating claims that he racially abused Manchester United's Patrice Evra, it emerged tonight.
The English Football Association released the independent regulatory commission’s full written reasons this evening on its website.
The 115-page document goes into detail of the case and the conversation the two players had during the match at Anfield on October 15th.
On December 20th, following a lengthy investigation by an Independent Regulatory Commission, the FA announced that Suarez would be banned for eight matches and fined €48,000 for racially abusing Evra.
The ban was suspended pending an appeal by the Merseyside club.
The report stated in its summary: “Mr Evra was a credible witness. He gave his evidence in a calm, composed and clear way. It was, for the most part, consistent, although both he and Mr Suarez were understandably unable to remember every detail of the exchanges between them.
“Mr Suarez’s evidence was unreliable in relation to matters of critical importance. It was, in part, inconsistent with the contemporaneous evidence, especially the video footage.
“For example, Mr Suarez said that he pinched Mr Evra’s skin in an attempt to defuse the situation. He also said that his use of the word ‘negro’ to address M Evra was conciliatory and friendly. We rejected that evidence.
“To describe his own behaviour in that way was unsustainable and simply incredible given that the players were engaged in an acrimonious argument. That this was put forward by Mr Suarez was surprising and seriously undermined the reliability of his evidence on other matters.
“There were also inconsistencies between his accounts given at different times as to what happened.”
The incident was triggered in the 58th minute of the match when Suarez fouled Evra. Five minutes later the Manchester United defender was marking Suarez at a Liverpool corner, the first time the two players had come together since the foul.
The two players were then involved in a row, and they were spoken to by the referee Andre Marriner.
Evra made a complaint to the referee at the time and after the game, which triggered an FA investigation.
On November 16th Suarez was charged with using abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour towards Evra, including a reference Evra’s ethnic origin and/or colour and/or race.
Between December 14th and December 20th the commission heard evidence about the incident from the match officials and staff from the two clubs including Ryan Giggs, Alex Ferguson and Kenny Dalglish.
The FA’s case, according to the report, was that Evra asked Suarez why he had kicked him, to which the forward replied: “Because you are black.”
When Evra challenged him to repeat the answer and said he would “punch him”, Suarez said: “I don’t speak to blacks.”
According to the report, Evra then told Suarez he was going to hit him, to which the Uruguay international replied in Spanish: “Dale, negro, negro, negro.” That translates to “okay, blackie, blackie, blackie”.
Suarez denied the charge. The report stated that Suarez said he “used the word ‘negro’ in a way with which he was familiar from his upbringing in Uruguay”.
The report said: “In this sense, Mr Suarez claimed, it is used as a noun and as a friendly form of address to people seen as black or brown-skinned (or even just black-haired).”
