Football Association to rule on Luis Suarez race row

When Luis Suarez joined Liverpool at the start of the year I wrote that he had the ability to shine in the Premier League but also that his fiery temperament would be put to the test.

He has given us more than I bargained for. An instant Anfield sensation, his exploits for Uruguay make Suarez beyond doubt the outstanding player in the world this year in terms of national team football.

In England, as expected, he has become the Liverpool player least likely to be popular with opposing fans but he has exceeded his own reputation for controversy with the flare-up with Patrice Evra and the charge of racism.

Suarez stunner ends South Korean hopes

When Suarez pulls on the sky blue shirt of his country he is part of a national team which has an unrivalled record of giving opportunities to afro-descendants. In the face of protests from their opponents, Uruguay picked black players in the first Copa America in 1916.

Probably the most revered figure in the history of Uruguayan football is Obdulio Varela, captain of the side that won the World Cup in 1950. His nickname was "El Negro Jefe" - the black boss.

Among Suarez's team-mates these days is Maxi Pereira, who is known as "El Mono" - the monkey. It is a nickname which, apparently, is given and accepted with no offence meant or taken. It appears to be used in the same spirit that Alvaro Fernandez is called "El Flaco", which means skinny.

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Among Suarez's team-mates these days is Maxi Pereira, who is known as "El Mono" - the monkey. It is a nickname which, apparently, is given and accepted with no offence meant or taken

Tim VickeryBBC Sport

These words are not easy - perhaps almost impossible - to translate into a contemporary English context. How do you judge the weight of a word uttered in a foreign language from a different mindset?

When Mick Jagger wailed "Hey Negrita" on the Rolling Stones song, his words were surely intended in praise. If it is true that Suarez used a similar word to address Evra, this would not seem to be the case.

But how to know when this word ceases to be descriptive and becomes pejorative? And for the FA disciplinary committee, how to avoid kicking the case around like a political football?

Suarez has provided them with a problem - but also with an opportunity.

Context is crucial, not just in what Suarez may have done, but also in how it is judged. When Sepp Blatter apologised for appearing to suggest racist remarks could be overcome with a handshake, it gave English football another chance to indulge in Fifa-bashing.

There must be a temptation to throw the book at Suarez and send a strong anti-racist message to the world.

Suarez sent off for handling on the line

When moral panic is whipped up, coherence tends to fly out of the window. Some of those calling for Blatter's head on the racism issue are the very people who believed that everything was fine with Fifa while Sir Stanley Rous of England was in charge from 1961 to 1974.

Rous seriously damaged the development of African football with his defence of Apartheid in South Africa - a stance which looked awful at the time and was disastrous in hindsight.

In his campaign to unseat Rous in 1974, Brazilian Joao Havelange made a point of showing physical intimacy with the African delegates. An Englishman, he reasoned, would not do the same.

Thankfully England is much-changed since then.

English football can be proud of its anti-racism work but it should be remembered that what has happened in our country is a domestic dynamic. Mass immigration starting in the 1950s brought in hundreds of thousands of newcomers with full political rights - and so the discrimination they suffered could only be put down to racism.

LUIS SUAREZ AT LIVERPOOL

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• Age: 24
• Place of birth: Salto, Uruguay
• Fee: £22.8m from Ajax
• Debut: 2 Feb 2011 v Stoke
• Apps: 32
• Goals: 12

Football made this sickeningly obvious. The Caribbean descendants who started to make an impact on the pitch from the late 1960s had to put up with all kinds of abuse. Over time a consensus formed around the belief that racist behaviour was unacceptable.

This dynamic does not necessarily apply elsewhere. In South America the legacy of centuries of slavery can make attitudes towards race more entrenched - but also more subtle. Elsewhere, to the east of Europe, for example, there has been very little exposure to the kind of multi-cultural existence that has become the norm in Britain.

This in no way invalidates the anti-racist position of English football. But it does mean that if the debate is to be won - and that surely must be the objective - then there are dangers in the moralistic holier-than-thou approach that the English can be prone to take.

This issue provides a real opportunity for English football to do some good - and also for the Football Association to improve its global profile. Much depends on how it is handled.

There is little to be gained in hectoring other nations and individuals with a moral high ground position of, "We're not racist, you are". Instead, there might be room for a position of leadership with a huge dose of humility.

"This is the problem of racism that we faced in our game," could be the line to football authorities around the world. "This is what we decided to do about it and, although we are nowhere near perfect, we feel we have made a lot of progress. Some of this may be useful to you".

My hope is that any punishment administered to Luis Suarez is guided by this spirit.

What Brazil can learn from Barcelona

In 1924, Uruguay arrived as unknowns at the Olympic football tournament in Paris, took everyone apart on the way to winning the gold medal and changed football forever.

The enthusiasm they set off led to the birth of the World Cup six years later. And like so many significant events in football, it was not just because they won - it was because of the way they did it.

Contemporary accounts raved about them. Influential journalist Gabriel Hanot praised their "marvellous virtuosity in receiving the ball, controlling it and using it," and drew attention to their "beautiful football, elegant but at the same time varied, rapid, powerful, effective."

It was South American football appearing before the world. It came from Uruguay, but it could have been Argentina. And within a few years, it could also have been Brazil.

Instead of the dominant, hard running, muscular Christianity style dictated by the English, this was something more subtle and balletic, made to measure for the short player with a low centre of gravity.Fast forward 87 years. Two teams played in Japan on Sunday with the World Club title at stake. Hanot's words apply to one of them - and it is not the South American.

Like watching Muhammad Ali against some outgunned challenger, Barcelona's destruction of Santos was as joyful as it was clinical. Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas and Lionel Messi ran rings round Santos as if the Brazilians were traffic cones in a training exercise.

According to the dominant current of thought in Brazil in recent years, this sort of thing is not supposed to happen. The physical evolution of the game, it was thought, had made it impossible. In this modern football of reduced space, the central midfielders need to be six-footers, big and strong enough to win the 50-50 balls and protect the defence.

And there was no point in possession football - a move with more than seven passes had a reduced chance of ending up in a goal. The way to win was to block the middle and look for quick counter attacks and set-pieces.

And the quality of the play? "If you want to see a spectacle," says Santos coach Muricy Ramalho, "then go to the theatre." Or maybe go to watch his side taken apart in such style by Barcelona.

In football the idea comes first. And the line of thinking helps explain the type of players produced. In Neymar Santos could count on a Messi equivalent. But where is the Xavi or the Iniesta? Brazilian football no longer has them because it is not looking to produce them. They do not fit the mould.

Perhaps the closest in recent times is the ex-Barcelona player Deco, who struggled for space at home and made his career abroad.

Instead of mobile little intelligent passing midfielders, Brazil has excelled in producing flying attacking full-backs - something Barcelona have successfully assimilated into their model. And also tall, unimaginative, limited central midfielders. These Barcelona can do without.

The set-piece and counter-attack model could have worked on Sunday. After six minutes, the game still goalless, Neymar got into a threatening position in his team's first counter-attack. Carles Puyol snuffed out the danger. But imagine if Neymar had eluded the tackle and gone on to score. Santos could have parked the bus with even more conviction.

Internacional of Porto Alegre managed to do it to win the world title five years ago - admittedly against a version of Barcelona inferior to this one. With the talent of Paulo Henrique Ganso and Neymar, Santos would surely have carved out further opportunities on the counter. There are many different courses that a single game can take.

Brazilian star Neymar still has much to learn from the world's best player. Photo - Getty

But it is almost certainly in the long-term interests of the Brazilian game that Sunday's game panned out as it did. Because now there is no hiding place.

Five years ago Internacional had a ready-made excuse. The massive financial imbalance between European and South American football left them with no alternative but to fight from a trench.

That line no longer works. Brazilian clubs are benefiting from the country's economic boom. In the conditions of five years ago Neymar would already be playing his football in Europe.

In the new environment, Santos have managed to find a fortune to retain him. Since winning the Libertadores in June they have added to their squad, acquiring centre-forward Borges as well as midfielders Henrique and Ibson.

It was not economic power that tipped the balance in Yokohama. Santos were undone by a collective footballing philosophy to which, despite months of preparation, they could find no answer.

After Barcelona had beaten Al Sadd in Thursday's semi-final the Brazilian media were quick to criticise the Qatari team, casting aspersions on the fledgling nature of football in the region.

Totally forgotten was the fact that Al Sadd are Asian champions, and therefore, on paper at least, a notch above Kashiwa Reysol of Japan, who had given Santos such problems 24 hours earlier.

Come the final, the first half of Barcelona-Santos was a replica of the Al Sadd game. With the difference that since Santos had gone into the match with such expectations they were much sadder.

But the story could have a happy ending. Defeat is always an opportunity to learn, and a defeat this emphatic could serve as a turning point in the country's footballing culture.

There is much that Brazil can take from Barcelona - which does not mean slavishly copying something from outside. If anything, it means getting in touch with a lapsed tradition of intelligent, collective midfield play, of passing through the team and all over the field. It means making sure that Gabriel Hanot's words apply once more on the Brazilian side of the Atlantic.


Q) Why do you think not much effort is put in advertising Latin American clubs or tournaments in Asia? Especially when there are millions of fans here, crazy about Brazil & Argentina and have been so for decades. This could easily translate to a lot of revenue for the clubs, as some of their big European counterparts are doing.
Anirban Ghosh

A) It's an excellent point. I think Boca Juniors in Argentina are relatively advanced in terms of their global profile. But the Brazilian clubs, though they talk of 'internationalising their brand,' are missing huge opportunities.

I saw a lecture of Sao Paulo directors a few years back were they gave figures for the number of fans that cubs have. But they were only counting the fans of Brazilian clubs in Brazil, the fans of Mexican clubs in Mexico, and so on. 'How little you understand,' I thought to myself.

It's not always easy for these people to think in global terms. The big Brazilian clubs, for example, are locked into a calendar that doesn't even give them space to take part in pre-season tournaments in Europe, Asia or North America.