Bad Blood: Luis Suarez v Patrice Evra - five years on

Updated 10/02/2017 at 12:16 GMT

Five years ago on Saturday, Liverpool visited Old Trafford amid hopes that a bitter row could finally be put to bed. No chance. Jim White revisits an extraordinary episode in modern football.

Luis Suarez confronts Patrice Evra

Image credit: Eurosport

Looking back from the safe distance of five years, it now looks a moment of peculiar madness, a brouhaha of the most fetid, fervent kind. The sort of history – like the South Sea Bubble, flared trousers or the career of Piers Morgan – that you now regard with a puzzled shake of the head.

But when it happened, boy did it seize the attention. As storms in a tea cup go, this was gale force, a hurricane ripping through our national game, leaving a trail of volcanic prejudice and bile. And for many of those involved it represented the worst of times.

Sitting up in the press box at Old Trafford on the afternoon of Saturday February 11, 2012 offered the perfect view. Manchester United were playing Liverpool and as the two teams lined up in front of the advertising hoarding denoting the Premier League sponsor, for a moment the entire stadium seemed to hold its breath. 75,000 people were staring intently down on a piece of carefully orchestrated stage-management. This was the handshake we had all been waiting for, a moment of gesture politics that was meant to provide a full stop to a simmering, festering row which had brought little illumination and much blast and fury. This was the moment that Luis Suarez met up once again with Patrice Evra.

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The row, and the reaction

Their entanglement stretched back four months. On October 15, in the Premier League match at Anfield, the Liverpool striker and the Manchester United left-back had clashed in one of those mass jostles ahead of a corner. It was nothing physical, not much more than the standard push-me-pull you, certainly nothing the referee thought worthy of intervention. After the match however, when interviewed by French television, Evra suggested that, during an extended argument about an earlier foul, the Liverpool striker had subjected him to a barrage of racist slights. He had called him “a certain word” at least 10 times, Evra said. When told of the accusations, Suarez denied them and wrote, in a Facebook post, that he was upset at the very idea he might be thought racist.

Suarez: 'I go to the field... not to create conflicts'

Image credit: Eurosport

Evra had reported the incident to the match official. He had discussed what had happened with his manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, who had told him he would back him should he feel it necessary to make a more formal statement. But the player had decided against it, assuming his tetchy post-match media interaction would be the end of it. The FA, however, picked up on his interview. Sensitive to the long-term accusation that it was not sufficiently robust in its procedures to ensure the game was not tainted by racism, it announced it would launch a full investigation. A board of inquiry would be set up to ascertain whether there had been any "abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour contrary to FA rules", including "a reference to the ethnic origin and/or colour and/or race of Patrice Evra."

Liverpool quickly released a statement announcing Suarez would contest the United player’s claims, adding that the club would "remain fully supportive" of him.

From the off, it should be noted, there were voices at Anfield counselling that this was not the territory on which to conduct a scrap. Within the communications department and among former players there were those who said it was an argument that could not be won, that the atmosphere surrounding the issue of racism made it unwise ground on which to wage public relations war. Far better to suggest the player apologise for any misunderstanding, say it was a mistake of language and quickly try to forget it ever happened. It was never going to work out well for the club’s image to be seen trying to condone racial slurs. If only, such voices in the club agreed, Suarez had called him a bleeding Manc.

Liverpool fans hold up a banner

Image credit: Eurosport

But at the time, the manager Kenny Dalglish had more pressing concerns than PR. He was alarmed about how such a public FA inquiry might undermine Suarez. He knew how vital the mercurial, magical Uruguayan was to his hopes of re-establishing the club as proper title contenders. And he feared the consequences of official edict. After all, this was a player who had been signed by Liverpool just after serving a lengthy ban, delivered by the Dutch FA, for biting an opponent, a ban that had precipitated his departure from Holland. Another suspension, Dalglish feared, might see him agitate for a move away. The manager wanted to show the player he was loved as well as admired. He corralled the club behind steadfast support. They would back him to the last.

With that decision, everything changed. It was no longer a tale of two footballers and bit of verbals, as Suarez and Evra became embroiled in the most fraught, toxic rivalry in English football. Pride, machismo and regional conflict fogged the issues, shrouding them behind a gathering mire of ugly, spiteful bickering. As Dalglish circled the wagons, it became Us against Them.

The battle, and the ban

Since the inquiry centred on the word of the two individuals at the heart of the row, the character of the pair was endlessly examined. Newspaper columnists debated the nuances of the River Plate dialect, ruminating over whether Suarez’s alleged use of the word “negrito” could in fact be delivered as a term of gentle endearment rather than as a racial slur. Despite commanding huge attention, this was in fact a red herring: the word “negrito” only appears three times in the 115-page FA report, in a tangential reference to Mexican player Omar Esparza. The word Suarez used was “negro”. That made an appearance almost 300 times.

The FA detailed 115 pages of reasons for its verdict

Image credit: Eurosport

Meanwhile, Evra’s previous altercation with a gobby groundsman at Stamford Bridge was said to be forming the basis of the Liverpool legal team’s defence that he was a man ‘quick to play the race card’ - despite the fact it was not Evra who had made any allegations of racial abuse in that instance. Social media fulminated with the insistence that the FA was too easily swayed by media pressure applied through Manchester United and its ubiquitous manager. United’s boss, meanwhile, insisted Evra was waging a moral war against a wider scourge. This was not personal, this was political. Ferguson explained as much in his matchday programme notes for Liverpool’s subsequent visit in February:

He did what was right; he made a complaint regarding racial abuse and that is the matter. My biggest regret is the way that Patrice has been castigated in some quarters for standing up to racism.

The FA appointed an independent three-man board of inquiry. Paul Goulding QC, Brian Jones, the chairman of the Sheffield & Hallam FA, and the former Sunderland manager Denis Smith heard testimony from all those concerned, including Evra and Suarez. On December 20, the verdict was in: Suarez was to be fined £40,000 and suspended for eight matches.

Liverpool’s official response was forthright, questioning Evra’s plausibility. A club statement said they were "very surprised and disappointed" at the ban. It went on:

We find it extraordinary that Luis can be found guilty on the word of Patrice Evra alone. No-one else on the field of play - including Evra's own Manchester United team-mates and all the match officials - heard the alleged conversation between the two players in a crowded Kop goalmouth while a corner kick was about to be taken.

Pointedly, the statement said of Evra: “It is also our opinion that the accusation by this particular player was not credible - certainly no more credible than his prior unfounded accusations.”

It added: “Nothing we have heard in the course of the hearing has changed our view that Luis Suarez is innocent of the charges brought against him and we will provide Luis with whatever support he now needs to clear his name".

Dalglish gets shirty

That support had its first public expression ahead of the Premier League game at Wigan Athletic the evening after the report was published. It was to be Suarez’s last game before the ban kicked in and Liverpool warmed up in t-shirts bearing an image of the player on the front and his name and number seven on the back.

Liverpool warmed up in controversial t-shirts against Wigan

Image credit: Eurosport

"I think the boys showed their respect and admiration for Luis with wearing the t-shirts," said Dalglish afterwards. "It is a great reflection of the man as a character, a person and a footballer that the boys have been so supportive and so have the supporters. He has earned that, he deserves it and we will always stand beside him. They will not divide the football club, no matter how hard they try."

Some observers were less impressed. Jason Roberts, the long-time anti-racist campaigner, was flabbergasted. “Really?” he said at the time. “Here’s a man who has just been found to have used racist terminology and they are backing him as if he were the victim. What kind of message is that sending out?”

In the press box that night, several former Liverpool players looked singularly uncomfortable. One suggested a far more appropriate gesture would have been for Dalglish to equip his players with Kick It Out t-shirts, to support football’s wider anti-racism message.

On December 31, the FA then issued its full 115-page report, the headline conclusion of which was that the Liverpool player had "damaged the image of English football around the world". It suggested that while it had found Evra a credible witness, Suarez’s evidence was unreliable and inconsistent. It found that while Suarez had admitted he had used the term “negro”, his insistence that the term was meant to be friendly and conciliatory was reckoned "unsustainable and simply incredible given that the players were engaged in an acrimonious argument". Though it was careful to point out that Evra had suggested that, while Suarez had used a racial epithet, there was no evidence that he was a racist.

The Liverpool crowd appeared to endorse their manager’s approach, despite the damning nature of the FA report. When the two clubs met in the FA Cup fourth round at Anfield at the end of January, a game from which Suarez was banned, every touch Evra had of the ball was greeted with a cacophony of booing. It went beyond standard East Lancs Road enmity: Evra was a symbol of the pro-United establishment, out to preserve its own interests by doing down Liverpool. Behind every boo there was real venom. He was more than just a Manc. He was a lying Manc.

The reunion

By one of those quirks of the fixture list that give football such a compelling narrative, Suarez’s first match after he returned from his enforced absence was at Old Trafford. In the week leading up to the game all the talk was about the pre-match handshake. The custom had been established as a ritual in 2008. The idea was to reinforce habits of sportsmanship, to demonstrate that amid fearsome competition there was a mutual respect. Or, as Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League put it in relation to the race row surrounding John Terry and Anton Ferdinand, which also erupted in October 2011: “It says: whatever the crap that’s gone on before, and whatever the crap that goes on after, for the next 90 minutes let’s just play football.”

But under the intense scrutiny of the television cameras, the handshake had become a moment of pure theatre. In the press there were those who suggested so fraught was it likely to be when Suarez crossed palms with Evra it might be better to suspend the ritual altogether, just as the FA had when Queen’s Park Rangers met Chelsea just two weeks before in the FA Cup, soon after the Terry/Ferdinand spat.

Patrice Evra looks at Luis Suarez

Image credit: Eurosport

Neither manager was having that, however. Ferguson was characteristically superior: of course it should go ahead, Evra had absolutely no reason not to accept the Liverpool man’s hand. Dalglish too insisted there would be no problem. Suarez had assured him it would pass without incident.

So it was that 75,000 pairs of eyes were trained on the two lines of players as they prepared to fulfil their pre-match obligations. Phil Dowd, the matchday referee, sought to defuse the moment by reversing the standard procedure and have the visiting side walk down the line of home players. That way Suarez would be moving all the time. And the first person in a United shirt he would meet would be Evra, the captain for the day.

Jon Platt, a Manchester United season ticket holder, was in the crowd with one of his sons:

To be honest, I couldn’t really see what was going on. All you could see was the Liverpool players’ backs as they moved along. You could see there was some sort of kerfuffle, but it wasn’t clear what it was. There’s no big screens at Old Trafford, so we didn’t get a proper picture of what had happened. But my other lads were at home watching on the telly. And my phone buzzed straight off. On social media it all kicked off.

In the press box, with television monitors readily available, we were privileged to action replay after action replay. It appeared that into a tense and fraught atmosphere, Suarez had interposed himself like an Alka Seltzer dropped into a glass of water. He had swerved Evra’s hand and planted his instead into the palm of the next man down the line, David De Gea. Realising he had been snubbed, an enraged Evra had grabbed the Uruguayan by the elbow. But Suarez brushed him off. Looking into the following camera lens, Evra held up his palm in Suarez’s direction in a gesture of resigned disbelief. Seeing what had happened, Rio Ferdinand, the next man down the United line, ostentatiously ignored Suarez’s outstretched hand and instead pressed the flesh with Pepe Reina. "I lost all respect for the guy," Ferdinand said later. "After seeing what he did, I decided I couldn't shake his hand."

The handshake not seen around the world

Image credit: Eurosport

That was it, that was the full extent of “Handshakegate”. But, driven by messages coming from television viewers back home, it was enough to send repercussions spinning round the stadium, fomenting an atmosphere fetid even by United/Liverpool standards. As an excited Geoff Shreeves reported live on Sky at halftime, in the tunnel as they headed to their respective dressing rooms, Evra attempted to confront Suarez. Martin Skrtel stepped in, which led to a full-on scrap between the two sets of players, requiring numbers of stewards and police to separate the incensed parties.

Evra was not finished, however. At full time, he marked United’s 2-1 victory with all the maturity of a seven-year-old, bouncing provocatively around Suarez, who had shown his value to the club by scoring for Liverpool on his return, in a celebratory whirl.

In his post-match press conference Ferguson, who rarely required invitation to occupy the moral high ground, radiated righteous indignation, refusing even to name Suarez.

I could not believe it, I just could not believe it. He's a disgrace to Liverpool Football Club, that certain player should not be allowed to play for Liverpool again. The history that club's got and he does that and in a situation like today [he] could have caused a riot. I was really disappointed in that guy, it was terrible what he did.

Initially Dalglish tried to brush the issue aside, telling Geoff Shreeves there was nothing to see here. In truth, like everyone in the stadium, he had not been given clear sight of the details. But after his friend Alan Hansen contacted him suggesting he should study the replays before saying any more, he sought out the Sky technicians. After seeing what had happened, he decided there was really no point conducting a press conference. He could no longer defend the indefensible.

Evra milked the applause in front of Suarez

Image credit: Eurosport

The aftermath

It did not finish there. For the next 24 hours the airwaves were clogged with vituperation. Everyone felt obliged to weigh in. Jeremy Hunt, the then secretary of state for culture, media and sport, was asked about the missed handshake when he appeared on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show the next morning. "It is incredibly depressing,” he said. “It was very unsporting behaviour and I am sure the Football Association will look to see if any rules were broken." Writing in The Guardian, the excellent Danny Taylor suggested: “What Suarez did was callous, premeditated and, most of all, dimwitted.”

At Anfield, those who had feared Dalglish’s siege mentality approach was doomed to embarrassment, quickly moved into action. One insider, who preferred not to go on the record, said the club owners, watching from the USA, were “incandescent” when they heard what had happened, quickly appreciating the potential public relations damage. The main shirt sponsor Standard Chartered Bank quickly expressed its critical concern.

The following day, Dalglish issued a statement:

I was shocked to hear that the player had not shaken hands having been told earlier in the week that he would do. All of us have a responsibility to represent this club in a fit and proper manner and that applies equally to me as Liverpool manager. When I went on TV after yesterday's game I hadn't seen what had happened but I did not conduct myself in a way befitting of a Liverpool manager during that interview and I'd like to apologise for that.

With his manager no longer prepared to stand by him, Suarez too was leant on by his employers. He soon issued his own apology.

I have spoken with the manager since the game at Old Trafford and I realise I got things wrong. I've not only let him down, but also the club and what it stands for and I'm sorry. I made a mistake and I regret what happened. I should have shaken Patrice Evra's hand before the game and I want to apologise for my actions. I would like to put this whole issue behind me and concentrate on playing football.

Five years on from the handshake that never happened, none of the principals are keen to revisit the moment. Suarez, Dalglish and Ferguson spurned all approach for this article. Evra is planning an autobiography, so prefers to keep his thoughts for that. But over the years since, there have been hints of how they feel. In Crossing The Line, his autobiography, Suarez accused Manchester United of wielding "political power" to get him suspended as a way of undermining Liverpool; Suarez also suggested that the English media conspired to manipulate coverage of the handshake incident against him. He added that the verdict that he was a racist would be "a stain on my character that will probably be there forever".

No longer a Liverpool player - he joined Barcelona in the summer of 2014, after taking a chunk out of Giorgio Chiellini in the Brazil World Cup - he blamed the then club CEO Damien Comolli for being unable to understand the intricacies of South American Spanish when he spoke with the referee and got Suarez’s version of events across.

'A stain on my character'

Image credit: Eurosport

By the time my version had been passed down the line to the referee it ended up not as Por qué, negro?, but as Porque eres negro, which changes the meaning drastically; porque doesn’t mean why?, it means because – the phrase became because you are black. I never said, nor would ever dream of saying, because you are black.

Handshakegate was not the last time the two players confronted each other. There were Premier League fixtures the following season which passed off without further incident. And in 2015, with Evra by now at Juventus, they met in the Champions League final.

“The past is the past. it’s no problem for me,” Evra said when asked if he would press the flesh with his nemesis. “But when we are going to play the game, I will shake his hand. He will never be my best friend, but this is not a problem.”

Evra and Suarez shook hands when Juventus played Barcelona

Image credit: Eurosport

Suarez said nothing. But when the handshake came, they grasped one another’s palms without making eye contact. It was a passing moment, something of little historical consequence, immediately to be forgotten in the subsequent eulogies for Barcelona’s victory.

How very unlike the afternoon which set English football, and its greatest rivalry, ablaze.

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