Race is not the only issue! Money talks and bullshit walks!

"From the cowardice that dare not face new truth and from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks its knows all truth... God deliver us..."
God deliver us indeed...

 I quote this as it was a prayer used by a visiting vicar at our church  and i was so taken with it... I have thought about it often since this issue with Luis Suarez came up....

It seems ironic to me that the Government of the United Kingdom.. a super power I think we are, are unable to deport a man such as Abu Qatada  back to his country of origin because of his so called Human rights, and that in this same land of the free,  a man is villified and labelled as all sorts by people who have done all sorts themselves  because he executed his human right not to shake the hand of someone who accused him of being racist which subsequently led to him being banned for 8 matches.

I was talking to a friend at work the other day, and I took great offence when he said that I was branded! His point was that I liked my iPad because it's apple! I was offended because in the course the conversation it transpires that he believes that it's not possible that I might enjoy the use of the device, because of what I can use it for or that I could not choose between the attributes of different tablets based on my own intelligence!  He basically stated that we were all so easily  manipulated to  the ways of companies! Now as write this I realise that actually I should not have been offended as he as merely pointed out a flaw in his own attributes! I listened to him when he sat in our offices and ranted about Kenny Dagliesh and Suarez and vilified them on the basis of what the newspapers and other media had said! It did not seem to occur to him that he was being manipulated by the media.  It's funny how he did not say that Arsene Wenger was rude not to shake Kenny's hand after our 1 all draw last season [recap: the game was 0-0 in the 90th minute and due to incidents etc there were an extraordinary amount of minutes added on, anyhow Spearing gave away a penalty and arsenal seemed to have bagged all 3 points until djourou gave away one at the other end and Dirk Kuyt equalised] !  Or that Sir Alex Ferguson was rude to say how Liverpool should deal with the same said Suarez oh no!  It's easier for him and the rest of them to base their analysis on the half truths spouted out in the papers than to read the source directly or to even just step back and actually think it through in a reasonable and logical fashion.

Now, In my house, growing up, we were taught that ignorance of the law is not an excuse for any wrong doings. It was that simple. So when Evra said that Suarez racially abused him and he came up with the fact that in his culture that language was normal and acceptable ( and it probably is) it was obvious that it was not going to get him anywhere and so the punishment from the FA was handed down.
 Excessive is an understatement. ( at least if you ask me) but LFC in their wisdom didn't appeal! And that was that or so we thought, but oh no on and on it went and the press just pressed and pressed, all sorts of people kept coming out to say that Kenny and LFC were wrong to support him and so on and so forth! Until the day of the infamous hand shake or lack there of! And off it went again!  I watched mouth agape and arms akimbo while Geoff Shrieves of Sky laid into Kenny despite it being glaringly obvious that he was not aware of what had gone on and there it came the vilification all over again, from all angles, news, twitter, Facebook not forgetting the blogs!!  Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but my God they could not even step back and see what was going to happen. Then came the apology, but was that good enough? Then there was all the crap about them being forced into apologising! I mean how ludicrous is that? I say that, but then I think there were meeting with sponsors etc, so no matter how big an injustice LFC feel they had to change their stance! Hypocrisy!!  Money talking and bullshit walking!

 It is quite clear from the report that there were gaping holes in the FA's assertions and whilst Suarez admitted using the 'offensive' word Evra was painted as an angel despite having insulted Suarez in the most base manner. Bullshit walking yet again!

Here in lies the problem,  why were these comments ( Evra's) not taken into consideration?   I do want to understand why it seems their respect campaign is confined only to race. at lea,st it seems that way.  I mean why does the referee not command any respect? Why do players question him at every opportunity?  Why is the lack of integrity not dealt with? Why is Wayne Rooney allowed to bluntly kick another player and the FA still stand up for him? Why are consistently poor decisions from referees not dealt with? And on and on I could go, my point is the way the F A operates is that they pick and choose their battles whist I believe as a governing body they don't have the right to do that, they should be enforcing all rules to all players, except where it jeopardises equality of opportunity.  There is the outstanding issue of John Terry, and yes I accept that he is innocent until proven guilty, but that does not mean unjust privileges, the match between Chelsea and QPR had their handshake cancelled by the FA, so why was the same courtesy not afforded to LFC and MUFC? Or to put it another way why was Anton Ferdinand deprived of his right to choose to shake hands or not? And since when do two wrongs make a right? Was it right for Ferdinand (Rio) to not shake Suarez ... Like  I said on and on!

Whilst I am on the subject of race not being the only issue, that's on the pitch ! What about the duties of the FA off the pitch? I had a cursory look at their website but I could not find so much as even a mission statement!  I am actually thinking about the issues of football clubs going into administration! For this gather FA deducts points!!!! How does that help? My real question is what type of due diligence does it carry out before it allows perspective owners to buy and take the helm? I mean Portsmouth FC is administration again and facing a winding up order! From what I can gather mishandling of the finances bungs  etc, what about Hicks and Gillette, they did not even have enough money to buy LFC and they subsequently kept piling more and more of their debt onto the club!

Its a bit of a mixed pot here, please bear in mind that much of this was written when the Luis Suarez issue was still hot! But thought it was still relevant today,  especially as there's an interview with Glen Johnson in the daily mail today on the matter!  I found it quite interesting to be honest, you can read it here for yourself. Once again there was lots of furore in the press, why did he say this, why did he say that?  He ignited the row all over again. Please people get a grip! I would bet my last dollar that most of those people did not read the article all the way to the end in order to get the whole rounded picture. Like it was said...half truths.