Same as those who break others legs, headbutt, elbow, deliberately harm opponents. If you're looking for some kind of morality and fairness in football then you've come to the wrong place. If you're looking for morality and fairness in life then prepare to be disappointed - as sad as that it is.
[strike]No problem with that - 3 game bans do little in the way of punishment in my humble opinion for injuries where there is clear intent. Maybe a 12 game ban (domestically around a third of the season, internationally it's near on 2 years) instead for first time offenders, doubling it for a second offence and life ban for a 3rd offence? Maybe your anger should be directed at FIFA for putting in place stronger deterrents or punishment? Seems FIFA could be doing a lot better on many issues - not that they'd acknowledge them or tackle these issues - too busy counting tax-free money and bribes etc[/strike] Football, sport, entertainment, they all reflect life and other aspects of it - why should morals be expected from sportsmen when they are not in other walks of life? Politicians sending others off to die in phoney wars, spying on their own people in the name of 'terrorism', or bankers greed causing recession/austerity for (nearly) all, FIFA know that many workers are going to die building the stadiums for 2022, for example? If you're looking for morality or fairness in football (or life) - you're going to be disappointed. It ain't right, lots of us don't like it - but sadly it's not going to change any time soon. (how do you stikethrough text again on here?)
I'm not looking for anything. I was just saying he shouldn't be permitted to play football ever again.
You are bitching on a sci-fi board about people bitching on football. I don't think you have any kind of higher moral ground about needing a perspective on things.
I agree - why not. Why not call for all those who've done that to be banned for life and not just go for the biter? (in the scheme of things Chiellini will be ok, someone on the end of an elbow to the face or broken leg may not) As posted before maybe a 12 game ban for first time offenders, double it for 2nd time offenders and life ban for the third time? If FIFA are serious about cracking down on this then they should go for it (or similar lengthier punishments)
Who's rational and reasoned now? It's one thing when a player gets hurt by an especially hard tackle, it is a competitive and physical sport where players attack each other for posession of the ball. Running up to someone and biting him has nothing to do with the sport, it is intentionally harming a person in a sport whose aim is to score goals. This aint boxing or martial arts where you aim to win either by points or beating the other into submission/knocking them out. Suarez should be severely punished and i would also condone a lifelong ban because it's not the first time he did this. He clearly shows that he has poor to no control over himself and such players have no right to compete. Period.
If questioning why biting a player is seemingly worse for some than deliberately breaking someone's leg, elbowing in the face or a corrupt inept organisation responsible for deaths of others, is 'silly' then I'll take it. Thank you. C'mon Iran for tonight
Sorry but that is bollocks. Players intentionally hurt opponents ALL THE TIME. What does it matter how they do it? Headbutting, biting, elbowing, kicking, punching... what's the difference? The intention and end result is the same - to hurt the victim. Sergio Ramos has been red carded around 20 times in his career for some of the worst fouls ever seen. Why does nobody call for him to be banned for life? He's only done it 20 times. Suarez is a saint compared to that thug.
I've had chance to calm down a little, and what follows is my rational explanation as to why a life ban may be the only answer : For every pro sportsman there are probably half a dozen kids that were at school with them that were at least as gifted. What makes the difference between the ones who make it and those that wash out of the academies or end up playing lower league or Sunday football, is that the pro's have incredible drive and will to win. They are hyper competitive, sometimes almost psychotically so, and they are lauded for it. They may be reasonable human beings off the pitch, but give them a game of tiddlywinks and they really want to win. Really, REALLY want it. It seems to me that Suarez is one of the 'over the line' cases. I doubt treatment would be able to divorce his excesses from his drive to win, and even if it looks like it's worked, we'd never really know until he'd retired. The straight choice is do what you can and take the risk, or remove him from the game for ever. A temporary ban won't do a damned thing...
"I’D LIKE TO INTRODUCE YOU TO SOMEONE. His name is Ebi and he’s from Iran. Ebi was born in Tehran in 1980, a year after the National Revolution and just two weeks before Iran got caught up in a war with Iraq that would last the next eight years. This is the context that Ebi was born into. A child doesn’t notice context though, context only becomes relevant in later life. A child only notices his streets, his neighbourhood, his friends, his family. Ebi’s childhood was full of all those things – children making their own entertainment, playing out, devouring every inch of the locality and knowing it as home. Ebi played football. Ebi played football for hours on the streets of Tehran. And then a child starts to notice. A visit from relatives in Germany, relatives with toys, relatives with material from another world. Terminator, The Pink Panther and Tom & Jerry. Images that weren’t from home. And then a child starts to notice. “We, me and my friends, we started to think that people in the west were living in a happier way. We felt the limits in Iran, we felt we weren’t free” The teenage Ebi met girls. The teenage Ebi then realised he wasn’t allowed to meet girls, realised he couldn’t walk down the street with girls. “As you get older you start to notice the things you’re not allowed to do, the girls and boys go to separate schools, you’re kept apart.” His friend had an illegal VHS player. They did what teenage boys the world over do, they waited until his parents went away and they watched a video. Secretly, furtively, checking the doors to make sure unwanted parents aren’t home early. They watched Titanic. They watched Titanic and they cried. Well played, Celine Dion. His name is Ebi and he’s a footballer. Football. You were allowed to watch football in Iran. In 1990, Ebi watched the World Cup. In 1990 Ebi watched Maradona for the first time. “He was like my hero, my everything” At aged 11 his Dad took him off the streets and registered Ebi for a summer football school. 11-a-side, pitches, coaches, tactics – organised football. Ebi played every position and settled on midfield. Everything revolving around Ebi, his head spinning. Ebi was good, Ebi was a footballer. Football as a way out, a distraction from life. A familiar story. “I was really trying hard, I really wanted it.” Ebi went through the system – under 15s, under 17s, under 19s. An unstoppable force, making the grade at each level. Ebi was proud, Ebi was achieving. And then Ebi got what he wanted. He signed for Niroo Zamini FC, the army’s team in the Azadegan League, Iran’s equivalent of The Championship. Just one more goal, the next step up – the Iran pro-league. There were trials, there were near misses, but the Pro League proved one step too far. Contemporaries of his were getting signed, moving on. His friend Masoud Shojaei got a move to La Liga to play for Osasuna. His friend Rahman Ahmadi got called up by the national team to play in goal. You’ll be able to follow Ebi’s friends Masoud and Rahman at the World Cup this year in Brazil. Ebi still tried though, he didn’t give up easily, despite the movement around him. “It was my everything.” There’s that phrase again. His name is Ebi and he’s a refugee. Two bad injuries later and increasingly it looks like football isn’t a way out. Finally, he gives up. The dream he had let football become was over. He got a job working for his uncle. Back down to earth. And then a child notices. “It happened very suddenly, I wasn’t a political person.” The 2009 election in Iran was an opportunity to change things but the change didn’t come. Allegations of voter corruption and bribery – democracy as an illusion. The morning after the result was announced Ebi was travelling from North West Tehran to South West Tehran. He comes across a huge demonstration on behalf of the opposition parties. Ebi understands the protest “Where is our vote, everyone understood this to be corrupt” Ebi phones work – “I’m not coming in today, I’m busy” Ebi never goes to work again. Every day for two weeks, Ebi goes to wherever the protest is and demonstrates. Every day for two weeks, Ebi sees people getting shot, people being arrested. “It was like hell, you didn’t know what was going to happen the next minute.” Why didn’t you just forget about it and go back to work? “I was angry, like everyone else, we were all angry. Millions didn’t care, they carried on going back to work. But I was trying to change something, I was trying.” The national TV coverage distorted and sanitised the protest, alternating points of view that there was no protest and any unrest was the fault of outsiders intent on trouble. “I didn’t care anymore, you get to the point, you go to the street and see all these things and then watch it on TV and it’s a different story.” But, via satellite, Ebi started to watch the BBC. Ebi started to watch CNN. They were telling the other side of the story, Ebi’s side of the story. Fresh motivation, a message being carried to the wider world. Someone was watching. “I wanted Iranians abroad to come back home, come and fight for our country.” There was momentum in the Western media, something had to happen, something had to be resolved. This was the story. But then Michael Jackson died. And then that was the story. Michael Jackson died and the media moved on to something else. Momentum lost. The story over. Suppressed internally and externally. Word got to Ebi that he had been recognised. People were looking for him. He disappeared, took refuge in his own country and waited it out. He heard they came to his family’s house, intent on finding him. “This is when I understood this is real.” He knew he had to leave, he knew he couldn’t wait it out. He escaped in a lorry and crossed the border to Turkey and spent a few days trying to work out what to do with his life. The advice was simple – stay in Turkey or think of something else, you can’t come back. His decision wasn’t his, his decision was made for him by people with access to limited opportunities. That decision was England. With help from the exiled Iranian community in Turkey, Ebi secures a fake passport and flies to Heathrow. Within two days of arrival he walks into a London police station and speaks the only words in English he has learnt – “I am a refugee.” They don’t believe him. “You’re dressed too smart”, they said. The whole process from stumbling across the demonstration on the way to work to arriving in London is no more than four weeks. Again – “It happens very suddenly, I wasn’t a political person.” But then a child notices. Ebi is sent to Birmingham whereupon he undergoes a four-month process to state his case. Ebi is successful, Ebi is granted refugee status. He can stay. Well played, Birmingham. 18 months later he walks into Seetickets, where I work, and asks for a job. His English is much better now and he’s been here ever since. Terms like “refugee”, “asylum seeker”, they’ve become at best empty, at worst loaded. But what must it feel like to be displaced? To be different? In Ebi’s first winter in England you may have found him shouting at ducks in a lake. You may have thought he was mad, you may have thought he was drunk, you would have been forgiven for thinking he was different. But Ebi had never seen ducks swimming in a semi-frozen lake before. Ebi was trying to save the ducks. So those bloody refugees, eh? Having the courage to stand up for what they believe in, leaving everything they’ve ever known and loved to flee for their lives, coming over here and shouting at our ducks, OUR BRITISH DUCKS! The nerve of them. His name is Ebi and he supports Iran Of all the nations that have qualified for the World Cup do you know which one had the highest attendances during the group stages? It was Iran, over 100,000 watched every group game at home. Iran is football-mad. Ebi is football-mad. And despite everything, Ebi has clung on to football. From the streets of Tehran, to the summer school, to the grass pitches, to Niroo Zamini FC, to finally being here in England looking forward to the World Cup – Ebi has clung on to football. It’s never left him and he is right behind his team, a team that includes his former friends. “A successful Iran would create a positive image. It’s a beautiful place with beautiful people. All you hear are the bad things.” Ebi has been victim of racism and prejudice since he came to the west. “If they do well, it makes us look better than we look now. Maybe it will change people’s opinions.” More than anything else though, Ebi wants them to do well for the people he left behind. “It will make the people happy. It will be the product of the people and the talent, not a production of the government.” “It will make the people happy.” http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2014/06/iran-id-like-introduce-someone/