[Legend killer]

Originally Posted by Stu

I'm going to sum up my thoughts with a nice, lovely rant and be done with it :

A swift apology, citing cultural differences, would have worked wonders. An apology is nothing for some of the things Evra accuses him of saying but - given that Evra says in his evidence that he does not think Suarez is a racist - cooler heads could have prevailed and they could have reconciled. Instead we've got into this spiralling "he said, he said" finger pointing nonsense, 115 pages of contradictions and a situation where I doubt anyone bar the two guys involved will ever know what actually happened.

Honestly, as with all these things, the truth probably lies somewhere in the murky grey. I don't believe Luis Suarez is a racist. I don't believe he was trying to be affectionate to Evra. I think Evra had been spitting feathers all match and Suarez had took the piss out of him and seen room for a wrench to wind him up some more. I think he's used 'negro' one or more times in a way that, in Spanish, wasn't offensive but that he knew would be interpreted as such by Evra [which of course makes it racist abuse - it's the recipient not the perpetrator that matters]. His wind-up backfired and Evra's embellished the story a little in his rage. If my little mind is right then eight games and the stain on his character seems a bit harsh. But if it wasn't my team's star player I'd be saying it needs to be done to send out the right message about racism.

If it were Andy Carroll I can't imagine Kenny wearing a t-shirt with his gormless mug on it.