Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has broken his silence over Luis Suarez's ban for allegedly racially abusing Patrice Evra.
The Liverpool striker was suspended for eight games and fined £40,000 after being found guilty of using insulting words towards the United full-back, with reference to Evra's skin colour.
"Our support of Patrice was obvious right from the word go and that's still the same," said Ferguson, in comments reported by the Guardian. "The matter is over and I think we're satisfied that they [the Football Association's independent commission] found the right decision."
Liverpool responded with a strongly-worded statement in which they criticised the FA and claimed Evra should also face charges after he admitted insulting Suarez during the altercation, while their players wore T-shirts in support of the Uruguayan before their draw with Wigan.
Ferguson initially insisted he had "nothing to say" about the T-shirts, but implied the Reds should back down and accept the sanction.
He added: "This wasn't about Manchester United and Liverpool at all. It was nothing to do with that. This was an individual situation where one person was racially abused."
The Scot also drew parallels with Evra's four-game ban in 2008 following an incident involving Chelsea groundsman Sam Bethell.
"Patrice got that suspension for the incident down at Chelsea when no-one was there, just a groundsman and our fitness coach," he said.
"He got a four-match ban and we had to wait two weeks for the evidence to come through.
"We were quite astounded at that. A four-match ban? We thought it was well over the top for a trivial incident. But it happened and there's nothing you can do about it, you know."
Comment 1 - 10 of 10
so Fergie, can we assume that you approve of Evra starting the whole argument by saying 'get your hands off me, you Spic'?
re 6 nobody gets away with things on the scale that man utd do., but only in English games the foreign refs are a lot fairer to the other teams
What's all this about the so-called abuse of scousers from 'JOHN'?
Any supporters who smash-up toilet facilities (presumably because they didn't understand what they were for), deserve all the derision they so-rightly receive!
hey alex fu0cguson, you and your club or players always get favor from the FA . you always bribe them,right?
JOHN football chants at every ground have a target so you are being more than a little narrow minded by suggesting its only united that are at it.
in all fairness looking at Suarez's disciplinary history the guy is a scumbag.Now he's a racist scumbag with a good seat for Liverpool matches.
you really do have the christmas spirit don't you. PURE SCUM
I wonder what fergie has in store for man city, in the way of getting some of their players suspended ? It definitely won't be the race card because I think the city players are all black.
sir alex fergie was quite correct , we cannot have minority ethnic groups being picked, on just wonder when man utd are going to be censured and have points deducted by David Gill and his friends at the FA, for the Man Utd fans constant abuse of Scousers, they are always singing songs about hating burning Scousers etc etc come on FA we cant have different rules for Man Utd can we? of course we can theyve been getting away with murder for 20 years
What a f'uckin' headline. He backs the decision because HE was the one who instigated the false charges.
It was fergie the red nosed a'rse bandit who told that darkie, evra, to allege suarez made disparaging remarks.
I'll bet fergie is also behind the J. Terry charges as well. What a disgusting old t'wat he turned out to be.
I hope millions of people come to his funeral just to piss on his coffin.
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