Quote: Roddy B "Yes, but if you're a cleaner in McDonalds and all of the staff swear their heads off at you, then all of the customers swear their heads off at you. Is it really unfair if you retaliate/make one/two bad comment/s? How is it fair to condemn a ref for discriminatory language when it's more than likely most of the players use it on the field every week? What the referee has allegedly said [iis[/i wrong, what's even worse though is the way people like yourself think it's borderline friendly to call somebody a Fat Spanish Waiter. Do you think Benitez found it funny? If he was offended by it (which I imagine he was, it's not pleasant, especially when sang with such an intent to humiliate), surely any other defence of it goes out of the window if we use your logic from the previous case with Suarez. Or is this another case of welcome to Britain, it's our rules and we'll do as we like?
The problem with the McDonalds analogy is the ref didn't swear at a customer, he swore at another player. I don't know what the FA guidelines are you speak of, but I imagine referees can be relaxed on occasions on the field and can probably let a few expletives go. The problem clearly isn't swearing, the problem is the use of the word Spanish in a discriminatory way. A player wouldn't make a complaint if the referee had said "stop being a tw*t", or "grow up you soft tw*t", it simply wouldn't happen and you know it, as the players dish out far worse every week.
The problem with the separate thinking is there shouldn't be a separate thinking when it comes to discrimination and 'racism'. We are told there should be a zero tolerance policy to it, whether it's a drunk scrub on the streets or a headmaster at a school, racism shouldn't be tolerated in any form is the message we're all forced to accept, so why should thousands of fans get away with it "because they're fans"? I understand the need to make examples of people in the limelight, they have to set the right example, but surely something isn't right if an FA won't act on thousands of fans singing FSW or your dad washes elephants, but they will possibly act on somebody saying Spanish tw*t. If they were consistent, they'd have said to the clubs that sung the chants that their fans would be banned if it carried on being sang, but they didn't, it was ignored.
If the entire Kop stand started doing monkey chants/gestures towards Evra next time we play United, will the FA condemn their behaviour, or will it be ignored because they're non-professionals? Will they fine Liverpool? Will they threaten with possible bans? What if the Kop stand sang "you're just a French African w*nker" towards him, would that be condemned or would it be seen as friendly? What if that chant became a regular occurrence at every ground? Would the FA have to act, or would they ignore like they have done with previous vile chants? You see, we expect teams in Europe to be banned if their fans don't behave, look at the reaction to the Serbian U21s as an example, yet we don't carry out similar actions when our fans use nationality to discriminate players/managers. You can't ask for a zero tolerance policy towards a referee's language but completely ignore the behaviour of thousands of fans.'"
I'm not saying you are wrong here, but it's a crusade to save the world you are proposing. You can't make 80,000 people behave appropriately, it's just not logistically possible. The authorities do fine clubs for their fans behaviour and chanting and get the Police to try to find the most serious culprits, but as a lot of those people are different every week and don't buy tickets in their own name, stopping them becomes impossible. It would be great if everyone could be respectful to each other, but such is the way of life.
Ref's you can do something about. They are paid to do a job and will have a code that tells them how to behave.