Spare Suarez, spoil the game

I must admit that I honestly thought Luis Suarez’s career had hit a snag following that infamous bite on Giorgio Chiellini. A footballer’s office is the pitch and Suarez was specifically told to stay away from football-related activities. That he’s not only training but is also playing for his new club barely two months into the supposed ban is disturbing. Remember this is the same club facing a two-year transfer ban for breaching rules regarding the transfer of minors. We can’t also forget the fact that Barcelona just paid the Spanish authorities £11.1 million to squash tax evasion allegations following Neymar’s transfer and that their other star player, Lionel Messi will soon be appearing in court, also on tax evasion charges. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the club didn’t find anything wrong with signing Suarez. How I wish someone could hack Fifa’s emails so we can know how things went down. Too bad neither Julian Assange nor Edward Snowden can crack this one. Maybe five or so years from now, we will know who brokered the deal and how much money changed hands. Makes you wonder what the point of the so-called financial fair-play is. And why did Suarez sign a five-year contract with Liverpool just last December, knowing he had no intentions of staying? I guess this is how employers feel when a new recruit leaves even before their probation period ends. Suarez is earning £200,000 a week at Barcelona, the same amount his former club had offered for the new season so the move doesn’t make sense. I hope he bites again. I also hope he flops, the same way Fernando Torres did. I just don’t like traitors. Speaking of which, I heard that Suarez texted his former boss, Brendan Rogers, wishing him good luck for the new season. If he really wished Liverpool well, he should have stayed. Reminds me of ex-lovers who dump you and then keep sending sweet messages and gifts on your birthday like old times. All the while, you want to scream and ask them to leave you alone because they just broke your heart. I doubt that a player of colour would have got away with what Luis Suarez has and knowing that this will not be the last time Fifa and other regulatory bodies let us fans down, here’s something I wish they would try. Several years ago, the then headmistress of the secondary school I attended came up with a way to balance things out between unprivileged students and those from wealthy families. If you’ve gone to school with politicians’ and successful businessmen’s children, you know how uncomfortable it is to share a dormitory with people who have everything; new bed-sheets every term, cartons upon cartons of milk, juice, tinned biscuits etc, not to mention lots of cash to spend at break-time. This only tempted the have-nots to steal from the haves and so our headmistress decided to set a standard amount of pocket money. I’m not sure all parents stuck to it but at least she tried to level the field, something Fifa should do unless they want to turn the beautiful game into the money game.