Naming Suarez a racist isn't the way

Last Sunday, non league side Mansfield Town gave Liverpool a good scare by battling all the way to just a single goal defeat. A great proud achievement, knowing there is a 4 ties gap between the two. The hard pill to swallow was Liverpool's second goal, which came from a very clear hands ball by Luis Suarez. The bandwagon of haters jumped on him instantly like flies who just saw a dog dropping some litter in the bushes. The ball skipped around a bit, and luckily via Suarez his hand he put himself on the scoring sheet. He actually didn't celebrate after that goal, keeping in mind the referee and/or linesman saw the incident and would rule his challenge out, maybe even with a booking. But the referee ruled that the challenge wasn't deliberate, the goal stood. Then Suarez did what he always does after scoring a goal: kiss the palm of his hand.

Now the haters were jumping upside down as if they'd saw snow falling down for the first time of the winter season. Suarez was 'a disgrace' for kissing the palm of his hand, seemingly suffering from a short-term memory. Also he was again 'a cheat', a valid point if you realise he came second in the diving table, just behind Man United winger Ashley Young. The roars were big, and the more hateful comments poured into Twitter, Facebook and other social networks, and the more people started to lose their heads. The 'he is a racist' jibes were now being echoed and that made me quite angry. I know myself that Suarez isn't a racist, and I know that all who are close to him - people from all kind of races/skin colours - have been jumping in to defend him.

Let me outline this.

During a game with Man United, Suarez was standing directly with Patrice Evra. Evra gave some mouthful towards Suarez, as it happens all the time during games: you want to win so you're trying to trouble your opposition in every possible way. At one moment Suarez had enough, and stated "just because you're coloured doesn't mean you may say all you want", however as he wasn't too familiar with the English word he used the South American word 'negro' (for coloured). Negro doesn't even come close to 'the N-word' but the media bias and the FA started to do a witch hunt to get Suarez banned. The FA ain't objective, it's being known for liking and supporting Man United with 'dubious' referee decision and so was it with this case: banning Suarez, it would amputate the team, and make Alex Ferguson a Happy Dandy.

Let me put one more example of double standards: Van Persie, almost killed by a ball against Swansea, jumped up and started a fight on the pitch. No card shown by the ref, and no punishment afterwards. But when Samir Nasri of Manchester City got a nasty challenge on him away at Norwich, and did less violence than Van Persie, he got a red card and received a three-match-ban. Only a blind person would not see this.

To come back to Suarez one more time, he didn't do himself a favour by feeding the hating mob. After the clash away at Mansfield, a young boy outside of the ground asks Suarez kindly for an autograph, but he ignores the boy in full. This is not making him a racist, but definitely it feeds the oppositions and the hungry press to let him remain being one of the disliked players in the Premier League.