Penalise players as well as fans

The two cases in question are different and need to be treated separately. Luis Suarez was accused of racial abuse during a match and found guilty by the English FA. While an eight-match ban does seem harsh (it certainly wasn’t hasty), surely we need to know the reasons for the verdict and ban before pronouncing them right or wrong. Also, it is not difficult to cut out any false claims by a ruling that anyone making a false claim is liable to a similar ban.

The John Terry case happened after a match while the players were walking off the pitch. The accusation was not made by the other player involved (Anton Ferdinand) but by a member of the public to the police. The FA have not made any decision here and may or may not take action after the court case is resolved. Again, making premature pronouncements about guilt or innocence should be left to the likes of Chalerm.

Given that football authorities around the world are (rightly) clamping down on racist behaviour by fans, surely they are obliged to penalise players for the same conduct (without pre-judging the players in question). It is ridiculous to suggest any follow-on racial affect on fans as they know they can be banned from the ground (or their team penalised for group chants) if caught. Fans can easily come up with non-racial and humorous chants to target players they don’t like.

I would have thought that Liverpool and Chelsea would have been better off conducting a proper investigation into the claims instead of blindly supporting their players. It’s a pity too that your correspondents ignore the opinions of many black players – that racism hurts.

Ken Malcolm

Bangkok