The Suarez case: The Media Reaction.

Firstly, I apologise for the length of this entry.  I realise that it is far too long but in truth I could have written five times the amount that I have on the following subject. Below is my perspective on the way that the British media handled the Luis Suarez racism case.  It is broken down into 3 parts and while I realise that obviously doesn't make it any shorter, I hope it makes it a more manageable read!

The changing of the media's representation of Luis Suarez as a footballer.

From the moment he joined Liverpool last January until the Manchester United match at Anfield on October 15th 2011, Luis Suarez’ media coverage had been almost exclusively positive. It focussed predominantly on how magnificent his performances had been on the pitch and how he had been the catalyst in Liverpool’s resurgent end to the 2010/11 season. That all seemed to change when an obvious smear campaign was set in motion by Manchester United manager Mr. Alex Ferguson. After the game had ended Mr. Ferguson was interviewed by the BBC and Sky television. These interviews were quite surreal, even by his lofty standards. He went out of his way to slander Luis Suarez, claiming that the player had been “throwing himself all over the place” during the match. Anyone who has watched Suarez knows that, like many players, he does make a meal of fouls in some instances. However, during that particular game there were no obvious dives from, or flash points involving Suarez (the Evra argument aside) and behaviour-wise he was very quiet by his standards. It seemed stranger still at the time that Ferguson had chosen to attack Suarez and single him out for ‘diving’ in a game where two Liverpool players were extremely obvious targets for the same accusation.  Stewart Downing had clearly dived for Liverpool in the first half and Charlie Adam had gone down easily in a controversial move that directly led to Liverpool’s goal in a match that ended 1-1.  That Suarez received more criticism from Mr, Ferguson than Downing or Adam seemed strange at the time but it all seems to make perfect sense now.  At the time of the interview Mr. Ferguson knew something we didn't.  He knew about Patrice Evra's accusations of racism against Suarez and Mr. Ferguson had now also decided to attack Suarez character by essentially calling him a cheat.

In the immediate aftermath of these comments not one journalist or television pundit highlighted the fact that Suarez hadn’t been “throwing himself around” during the game.  Neither we're two British players who legitimately could have been singled out for diving, heavily criticised (amazingly, British players are rarely criticised in our media for play acting, diving and cheating, especially in comparison to foreign players guilty of the same things). Over the next month or so I was shocked and appalled with the U-Turn the media coverage of Suarez took.  He went from a player who was consistently praised to a pariah literally overnight.  The twinned accusations of diving and racism from United's highly respected manager and less respected captain were all the ammunition that our media needed to make Suarez their next villain.

After the Liverpool - United game, whenever Liverpool were discussed, be it on air or in print, it was a sure bet that a large chunk of it would be set aside to discuss Luis Suarez’ and his“cheating” ways. This was solely based on the accusations of United's manager.  If ever an instance confirmed the suspicion that journalists are terrified of and influenced by that good, respectable knight of the realm Mr. Ferguson, this was it. I vividly remember watching open mouthed as ex-Liverpool captain and former assistant manager Phil Thompson and the rest of the Soccer Saturday gang (prompted by the ever willing Jeff Stelling) criticised Suarez’ actions for nearly a full ten minute segment on Sky Sports News like a pack of wolves tucking into their injured prey.

It wasn’t just off the field that Mr. Ferguson’s comments had negative ramifications for the player though. Predictably, given the media’s focus on Suarez’ ‘diving’, referee’s barely gave him a free kick during the following games and whenever he was legitimately fouled commentators would still criticise him for ‘going to ground too easily’. Prevalent examples of this were Guy Mowbray and Chris Waddle. Mowbray attacked Suarez numerous times on the BBC during his commentary throughout a match at Stoke on 26th October.  Nearly every time the striker was fouled the commentator accused him of diving.  The most disgusting example of Mowbray's obvious contempt for Suarez came when the forward was clearly fouled inside the Stoke box but managed to stay on his feet instead of trying to win a deserved penalty.  He subsequently missed a goal scoring opportunity as he was off balance.  It should have been a penalty for Suarez but his decision to stay on his feet probably cost him and his team a goal.  What was his reward for behaving in an honest way?  What did Mowbray say to praise the integrity of the player in this instance?


"He stayed on his feet when there was contact.  That's not like Luis Suarez...."

You can hear this moronic commentator in the video below basically falling over himself to mention the negative perception of Suarez before the player rams his words down his throat if you fancy a laugh....

Chris Waddle, working as a commentator for ESPN repeated the words "Suarez has gone to ground easily there" so many times on 22nd October when Norwich played Liverpool that I thought he had developed an acute case of Tourettes.  I'd like it if that particular beacon of knowledge would educate himself enough in football parlance to understand that the word 'pelanty' doesn't exist before he is let back on our screens to impart his nonsensical ramblings in future.

Even opposing players began to take unwarranted shots at Suarez.  In the West Brom - Liverpool game on 29th October, Suarez was fouled inside the box.  It was a clear foul and an obvious penalty.  To Suarez' credit though, after being knocked to the ground he simply got up and chased the ball, not even appealing for a foul before the referee made the correct decision and awarded a penalty.  The fact that Suarez did not appeal and try to influence the referee or go down in a theatrical manner did not matter to West Brom player Paul Scharner though.  He came out with this sarcastic quote after the match:

'He (Suarez) is very good at winning penalties. He's one of the best on the planet, in fact. I had a good view of it.'

So even after clearly being fouled and not appealing for a penalty Suarez was once more being attacked (this time by his peers) for cheating.  The witch hunt was in full effect. Again, the media overlooked Scharner's slanderous comments, it was easier to write headlines like "Luis Suarez is a diver says Paul Scharner" as the Daily Mail did, simply adding more fuel to the fire, rather than condemning Scharner for his poisonous and untrue comments.  Telling the truth when it came to Luis Suarez wasn't a priority for the media at this time.

It was infuriating to hear this garbage being peddled week in week out and it was the first indication of what a spineless bunch of sheep the media representatives in this country would be when it came to all things associated with Luis Suarez. They all followed the new assertion  that Suarez was a diver and a cheat and no one dared to speak out against the unfounded accusations of people like Scharner, Waddle, Ferguson and Mowbray and call this for what it was, a witch hunt.

The only person who publicly stood up for Suarez over Mr. Ferguson's allegations was Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish who released the following statement in a press conference after the racial allegations and diving accusations had been made.

This character assassination and smearing of Suarez’ as a footballer was only the tip of the iceberg though, what followed in regards to the racism case was absolutely astonishing.


The Media’s Reaction to Liverpool’s Support of Luis Suarez

Can you recall any high-profile case containing evidence which is so flimsy that has been reported in such a one sided manner? In the absence of any discernible hard evidence in this case it really does amaze me that the media haven’t examined the report and openly and objectively debated its findings for the public. They have simply jumped on the ‘Luis Suarez bad, anti-racist F.A good’ bandwagon and in doing so have condemned the player, his club and it’s fans for their reaction to the F.A’s decision.

Upon the release of the F.A’s initial verdict (before their report had been submitted to Liverpool Football Club or anyone else) Liverpool F.C released a hard hitting statement that basically blasted the F.A’s decision and pledged its full support to Luis Suarez.

In the warm up of their next fixture at Wigan, Liverpool’s players took to the pitch wearing T-shirts showing their support for their colleague. The message was simple; they backed their team mate and didn’t believe he was guilty of racism. The club and it's players received widespread criticism for this act.  It was an emotive topic and Liverpool's response was not subtle, that is for sure.  However, I look at it like this:

If my friend was convicted, punished and subsequently sentenced to a life time of hatred from almost an entire nation on the back of subjective findings when I believed he was innocent I would like to think that I would stand by him or her.

That is all Liverpool’s players did and yet this simple gesture has been described as a “P.R disaster” and condemned as “inappropriate” by pretty much every media outlet. Some journalists have gone as far as to say that the wearing of these shirts has given people the impression that Liverpool are enabling a racist culture at the club due to the fact that they are supporting someone found guilty of racism. How myopic can you be?

This just shows how much easier it is to tow the party line rather than discuss the obvious reasons as to why Liverpool F.C reacted the way they did. If Luis Suarez had been caught on television being obviously racist, thus confirming unequivocally Patrice Evra's accusations does anyone seriously think Liverpool Football Club would have done anything other than condemn and punish Suarez' actions? The reason they stuck by him in such an overtly aggressive manner is that they reject the F.A’s report and its findings and still firmly believe that Suarez is innocent.

Instead of letting people know why this case is so subjective as to provoke such an impassioned reaction from a football club of worldwide repute, our media simply chose to brand them as ignorant, stubborn and irresponsible. In the minds of the media and its consumers who were fed this one sided rubbish, Liverpool Football Club is now disrespecting and diminishing the fight against racism and has had its reputation tarnished.

Quite why respected sports journalists such as Henry Winter, Oliver Holt, Tony Evans and Patrick Barclay can't simply say that they disagree with Liverpool's stance but understand their reasoning is beyond me.  The general consensus is that Liverpool and Suarez should have accepted their punishment and released a full apology and pleaded for forgiveness.  This rationale is astounding.  Such a reaction from Liverpool would only have been warranted if there was literally no doubt that Suarez had been racist on October 15th.  That is not the case.  There is still a huge portion of doubt as to whether Suarez did anything wrong, so why the hell should Liverpool Football Club and Suarez get down on their knees and beg for mercy?  It would be an admission of guilt where guilt does not even exist and thus completely insincere.  The likes of Holt and Barclay can be found condemning Liverpool's actions on Twitter on an almost hourly basis.  Unsurprisingly they do not reply when I raise some of the points I have in this blog.

It's not hard to see why Liverpool are so upset about this verdict and why they still stand behind Suarez but none of the above journalists have put forward Liverpool's and Suarez' side of things. There has been a chronic lack of balance in the reporting of this case.  I feel it is their responsibility as influential members our of nation's media to let their readers know the reasons why this report is subjective and let people make up their own minds.  Instead they have simply taken the easy way out and repeatedly condemned Liverpool's reaction and left people thinking that the football club were obviously in the wrong.

The Media’s approach to Suarez after the F.A report

This bullsh*t began before Luis Suarez had even been found guilty (or even given his statement to the F.A for that matter). Some weeks prior to the F.A's verdict, the national red top, the Mirror published an interview with Mr. Alex Ferguson who, predictably made a remark about racism in football. Splattered next to a huge quote of “Racism is creeping back and ruining our game” was a large picture of Suarez and Evra as shown below.

Before the independent panel had even listened to the required witnesses or found any evidence, the ball was rolling. Suarez was being painted as a racist in the public’s eyes. It was an astonishingly inappropriate piece of ‘journalism’ and was sadly indicative of our tabloid press and also what was to follow.

Upon Suarez being found guilty the same paper released the picture below as it’s back page lead.

Bear in mind that at this point the F.A hadn’t even released its findings, nor provided any explanation as to why Suarez had been found guilty. Instead of waiting for the findings to see the light of day and reporting that he had simply been found guilty at that point, Suarez was immediately branded a racist in the eyes of millions by our media. As mentioned above, Liverpool Football Club swiftly responded with a statement that could barely conceal their disgust at the decision and begged the F.A to release the report so it could all be cleared up. They must have thought that when the F.A’s notes were released our press would be able to easily pick apart the report and indeed, they should have done.

If ordinary people like myself can see through the report for what it is (a stitch up) and cite clear examples that back that up then why have we not seen this from our ‘unbiased’ media? There are plenty of well educated football journalists in this country who could have sat down, read through the report, dealt with the inaccuracies and reported honestly about why they backed Evra or Suarez.  At the very least they should have pointed out the parts that infuriated Liverpool, thus showing their readership that this case was not as clear cut or one sided as they have subsequently made out.

The report almost begs to be dissected and debated. If I were a football journalist reading through this report I'd have been excited by the numerous debatable aspects of it and would have relished discussing it at great length.  Instead, all we got was a white wash.  The media's reporting on the case can be summed up by the Mirror headline above, such was the lack of detail or analysis that was put forward.  I find it a stain upon our media that such a case could be portrayed universally in such a disgustingly one sided manner.

Maybe the reporters couldn't be bothered to read through and dissect 115 laborious pages of F.A trollop at 6pm on New Years Eve (when the findings were finally released). Maybe they wanted their readers/viewers to see them as being totally opposed to racism and were worried of the repercussions for ‘taking sides with a proven racist’.  Whatever their reasons, our media failed its public in this instance. It's members took the easy way out, slandered a respected Footballing institution, it's manager, its fans and most importantly helped to cement the idea that Luis Suarez is a racist.  They failed to highlight the complexities of the issue with any real detail, they failed to encourage constructive debate on the issue of racism in football and they took the easy way out by relentlessly condemning the 'guilty' party and his supporters.

This was not a conspiracy between the F.A and our media to set out to hurt Liverpool Football Club or Luis Suarez, it was simply a combination of incompetence and cowardice which has ultimately shown the short comings in both our Football Association and our media.

I urge you to watch the following interview with John Barnes who sums up the issue of racism in football, in five minutes, better than our media did in 4 months.