having done a lucas the other day (destroyed my left knee) i've been cooped up in bed all evening catching up on this thread. entertaining stuff, even though it's made me want to bang my head against the wall in frustration from time to time.
i'm beginning to wonder how much of this affair was prejudiced by written statements.
lfc claim suarez didn't hear evra's comment, but the way it is phrased suggests he did hear it but didn't mention it (as he's not a whining bitch) in his initial pre-hearing written statement, instead only mentioning his own innocuous words during the incident.
evra, on the other hand, assumed that once the investigation was underway his own words would be exposed, and so included his own contribution in his statement (perhaps translated into english to lessen the blow) to preempt any counter-accusations that might come his way and to ensure he kept the moral high ground.
so we have an inadvertent confession from evra that he must be kicking himself about. presumably, once the FA get the report from the 'independent' panel, they will have to charge him just the same as suarez. this perhaps explains something that was confusing me, namely why he would even mention his own offence.
suarez's written statement, on the other hand contains words beginning with the devil's letters n-e-g-r. did the panel see words like "negro" written down, read them in english and jump to an anglocentric conclusion and verdict even before the hearing (as lfc intimated in their statement)?
all speculation of course, but that constitutes fun when you're stuck in bed all day with a knee the size of a watermelon...
as a slightly pedantic aside, there's a lot of people making the claim that the english word "negro" and the spanish "negro" and "negrito" are false cognates. they aren't. they are about as un-false as cognates can possibly be.
finally, i'm amazed this thread has proceeded so far without anyone posting this exclusive image of the first day of the hearing:
have a nice xmas everyone!
