Last night reminded me of the time, what the fuk were Liverpool thinking? That tee-shirt gesture was embarrassing and cringeworthy.Remember the reception Evra got at Anfield afterwards?
As a Liverpool fan, and basically wanting to give the club as much of a break on this as possible, I saw it as the worst kind of tribalism.
I can believe that Suarez didn't intend it as racist with a bit of squint. Even then, the response was just wrong. In that situation you throw your hands up and say "OK, now that I see how it was taken, I am massively sorry."
What you don't do is double down and say "but my racist comment wasn't meant to be racist!" The fault was basically complete failure to acknowledge that fundamentally Suarez' intent here is much less important than the fact that evra had clearly and justifiable felt racially abused and was owed an unreserved apology. Dalglish was like a man out of time in his failure to realise the same. And the club massively at fault for letting it all happen and allowing it to build into an actual case to be sorted out. Sadly the club lead the way in the way the fans went tribal on this.
I don't believe there was genuine racist intent from the club, maybe not even Suarez. The complete failure to prioritise anti racism over Suarez' claimed intent and failure to realise that in doing so they were basically siding with racism in the public eye was just appalling and embarrassing. A real low point.
Re the handshake, I remember thinking at the time that it looked like evra was kinda reticent and that's why Suarez didn't follow up. Still, if he'd been sincere and, you know, actually wanted to make amends with evra as he should have, he'd have made a point of reaching out for the handshake anyway. Dumbass move really.
