should be banned for a very very long time.

That is all.

Than I

Absent evidence, I wouldn't take anyone's word for anything

is not totally reliable.

to not tumble theatrically to the ground unless fouled.

Sadly, nothing can be taken for granted on the football pitches of the 21st century. Apart from the brilliance of Leo Messi (see other thread).

I've no idea who is lying and neither do you. All we can hope is that justice is done.

it's not always true. I would love to think that it was true. I don't however know anything re the subject matter you refer to.

how much linguistic understanding there can be between an Uruguayan and Frenchman in a noisy Anfield, however I cannot believe that Evra would make something like this up. Both players though have previous, I believe and would be interested to see what the outcome is.

You have just completely ignored one of the fundamental protections of the English justice system, the presumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty.

I wouldn't believe a word he said. Suarez, as another poster said, is innocent until proved guilty. Evra seems a particularly objectionable character e.g. his behaviour at the last world cup.

...from today's Guardian is here.

A taster:

In football as in wider society, there are far too many people who claim that the real issue isn't racism, but people making false accusations of racism, just as there are plenty of people who prefer to think that false accusations of rape are more of a problem than rape itself. They aren't.

Deliberately or not, too many miss the big picture, which is that any accusation of racism should be dignified, so that the next person who might have cause to make one sees that a fair hearing is at least a possibility. Naturally, the investigating authorities may find it unproven or malicious. But no incident should be blithely and hastily written off by people not in possession of all the evidence and testimony, but who reckon the accuser may be a wrong 'un.

in this issue, as it's a 'he said, he said' kind of thing, but I will say that I feel very uncomfortable about a situation in which, because a party 'feels' another party has been racist towards them, that party is judged to have a case.

I've tentatively raised this on here before, but you're just as injured / maimed / dead as a victim of inter-estate violence, inter-family violence, dysfunctional relationship violence, fall-out-of-business-dealings-violence, random-walking-through-the-wrong-part-of-town violence, wearing-the-wrong-football-colours violence, etc. as you are from 'racist' violence.

In any of the above cases, how robust would the defence of 'it is my belief that he was disrespecting me, therefore, legally, he was' be?

.....Liverpool/Man. Utd. rivalry is alive and kicking, it's merely taken a brief respite away from dis-respecting the dead and injured of Munich and Hillsborough for a season or two.

Still, at least it was a good game......NOT!