It was bad at the time, but Liverpool's ill-advised show of support for Luis Suarez in 2011 has not aged well. The club wore t-shirts in supports of the Uruguayan after he had been banned by the FA for racially abusing Patrice Evra, and it is an incredibly poor look for the club.
Jamie Carragher addressed the incident last night on Monday Night Football, where Evra was a guest in the studio. He apologised for his part in it, admitting that he should have been braver in saying no to the t-shirts which were worn before a game at Wigan:
What I would say is that maybe I, as an individual, lacked the courage to say I wasn't wearing it. Because once the squad has decided... I have to look at myself. I didn't have enough courage. Maybe there were others. I don't think everybody within Liverpool thought that we were doing what was right.
But as a family, as a football club, your first reaction - no matter what someone does - is to support them even if they are wrong. And that is wrong. I am not condoning it, but that is the first reaction. Apologies. We got it massively wrong.
Evra accepted the apology, but Rio Ferdinand did not seem convinced.
During a wider conversation about racism in football on BT Sport this evening, he said the apology has far too late. He also says that he has yet to see any apology from the club itself.
"Testament to Jamie Carragher for apologising eight years after the incident."
"Liverpool let themselves down that day wearing the t-shirts"@rioferdy5, @GaryLineker, Owen Hargreaves and Joe Hart discuss racism in football, with Rio drawing example from Suarez and Evra in 2011. pic.twitter.com/lkMkrJPv8z— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) October 22, 2019
It's eight years late. Testament to Jamie Carragher for apologising eight years after the incident. I was there on the pitch.
At the end of the day it's bigger than Jamie Carragher, it's a club. Liverpool let themselves down that day in wearing the t-shirts in support of someone who's been accused of racist comments.
Eight years on and still the apology hasn't come from Liverpool, in that sense.
I just think the game has moved on from then in terms of the narrative now. What's on the end of everyone's tongue is racism. At that point it wasn't, so people were kind of startled into 'what do we do', even more so now.
We're still sitting here saying 'what do we do?'
