This is probably one of the more tone-deaf defenses I’ve read in some time. Pulling out the “black family members”, i.e., the “some of his best friends” are black card is probably the lowest route you can go in defending Luis Suarez.

The problem for Suarez is that he apparently copped to using the word “negro” and it’s hard for a Westerner to see that in any context other than racial abuse. It gets worse when the Liverpool statement essentially blamethrows at Evra (no matter how much of a prat you think he is, he doesn’t deserve to be racially taunted.)

The big and valid objection is that there’s been no outside corroboration of Suarez’s alleged behavior toward Evra — it’s pretty much Evra’s word against Suarez’s — but while LFC emphasized that at one point, all the other stuff involved undermines them and Suarez.