Biting news: Luis Suarez: yes, he's hungry but can he EVER play for Liverpool again

This is the first tweet from Luis Suarez after yesterday's incident: "I'm sad for what happened this afternoon, I apologize Ivanovic and all football world for my inexcusable behaviour. I'm so sorry about it!!" But as you can see above, he's done it before. Here's what happened today...
 

The first point that needs to be made about Sunday’s unbelievable Luis Suarez biting incident is: he’s done it before. Like his infamous use of the hands in vital situations, he doesn’t seem to learn the lesson.

The second point? The 26-year-old CANNOT play for Liverpool again. Enough is enough. Prominent hands are one thing, prominent teeth are another. Ask Mike Tyson.

Playing for Ajax Amsterdam against Feyenoord in 2010, there is clear video evidence of the controversial Uruguayan biting the neck of Dutchman Otman Bakkal, a tasty misdemeanour which earned him a seven-match ban.

That first attempt at cannibalism came AFTER the infamous handball which devastated Ghana at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa but BEFORE his eight-game ban for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.

Since then, he has managed to get in to trouble for diving, using his hands, stamping and erm... scoring goals.

Just yesterday he needlessly handled to give away the penalty which gave Chelsea the lead seconds after the first goal and scored the last-gasp second in a pulsating 2-2 draw at Anfield – but only because ref Kevin Friend ignored those Branislav Ivanovic tooth marks, despite the Serbian defenders’ animated complaints.

The question is, can Suarez play again after yesterday's incident, which echoed around the football-speaking world? Clearly, Liverpool are worried. The Football Association will charge him (violent conduct or vampirism), with one eye on the career-changing seven-match suspension for the first incident in Holland.

After that, he never played in the Ere Divisie again. He moved to Liverpool. On Sunday night, Suarez said: "I have tried to contact Branislav Ivanovic to speak to him personally. I apologise also to my manager, playing colleagues and everyone at Liverpool for letting them down."

His long-suffering Liverpool coach Brendan Rodgers said: "Having reviewed the video footage and spoken to Luis, his behaviour is unacceptable and I have made him aware of this."

More conclusive is this from Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s managing director, who cancelled a Reds-promoting trip to Australia as Suarez’s arm-chewing went global.

Ayre said: "His conduct is not befitting of a Liverpool player. Luis is aware that he has let himself and everyone associated with the club down. We will deal with the matter internally and await any action from the Football Association."

Tellingly, Rodgers said in his post-match interview: "This is a club with incredible values and ethics. There's certainly no-one bigger than this club, a player or a manager. You think a player can’t be released then another one comes along.

"As football managers, staff and players, we're representing this club, off the field and in particular on the field."

Former Liverpool and England midfielder Jamie Redknapp, trying to explain the remarkable scenes on Sky in England, said: “There is that madness-genius gene in him because as a player he’s exceptional, with people talking about him being player of the year, but what he did today, is indefensible.

“Even the staunchest Liverpool supporters cannot look at that and think that’s okay. Why on earth would you want to take a chunk out of someone when you are on a football field? That is an absolutely incredible act of brutality. It’s madness.”

Former player and coach Graeme Souness growled: "He has to be in the last-chance saloon as a Liverpool player."

There is another awkward debate about to dawn too. Suarez, who scored his 30^th goal of the season six-minutes in to injury-time yesterday, has been named on the PFA Player of the Year shortlist.

PFA chairman Gordon Taylor, one of the world’s richest union leaders, said: "It is very depressing and embarrassing that it should happen. If it wasn't for all the controversies he's been involved in he would be a more highly regarded player.

"Players are role models and are highly rewarded. This sets such a bad example. We cannot exclude him from our awards but this is embarrassing."

You can hear me discussing Suarez's hunger on eTV Sunrise (DSTV 194) at 7.15am and eNCAnews (DSTV 403) at 8.15am. A version of this story will appear in The New Age newspaper on Tuesday morning.

The Hand of Yid: Defoe cheats to see Spurs through. You just can't deny it.

After the Hand of God and the Hand of Frog, it would be deeply unfair to ignore the latest great footballing injustice: The Hand of Yid.

Look, there’s no denying it. Just because he’s a lovable little Englishman, Jermain Defoe can’t be allowed to get away with the blatant handball which turned last night’s Champions League qualifier Tottenham’s way at White Hart Lane. It’s cheating. It’s wrong. UEFA should look at the tapes and punish both the player and the club.

Isn’t that what we English cry whenever Johnny Foreigner uses a hand to gain advantage?

Argentina’s Diego Maradona has never been forgiven for punching one in against England in 1986, Frenchman Thierry Henry is still roundly condemned for his basketballing antics against Ireland in last year’s World Cup play-off and Luis Suarez was castigated (but not castrated) for briefly becoming an extra goalkeeper when Uruguay scraped through their quarter-final against Ghana at the World Cup in July.

Throw them out, we cried. Ban them forever, the headlines proclaimed.

So why should Defoe’s cheating be treated any differently? Can you imagine if the boot had been on the other erm... hand? Spurs fans, who like to call themselves Yids in the club’s faintly self-parodying Jewish tradition, love to complain. Ever since the double in 1961, they’ve been going on and on. Their manager, Harry Redknapp, never has enough over-paid players and always has more traumatised injury victims that an episode of Casualty.

I say it’s time for neutrality, since we’re dealing with the harmless (and armless) Swiss. Imagine how Young Boys, 3-2 after up the first leg in Bern, must have felt with that lucrative place in the group stages at stake? Peter Crouch headed the opener to level the “£20million” tie after just five minutes, then Defoe committed his unforgiveable sin.

With the ball dropping behind him, the 5ft 7in mini-dynamo clearly controlled the ball with the crook of his left arm before turning neatly past protesting Swiss defenders to slot home the winner. Great finish, clear handball.

Crouch made it 3-1 after an hour (5-3 on aggregate), and Defoe then found himself substituted while goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes, who had been begging to be subbed after an early injury, was left out in the rain by boss Redknapp. Curious.

Crouch was given the ball when the ever-impressive Gareth Bale was brought down in the box with ten minutes left, and duly scored his third – only the second European Cup hat-trick in Tottenham’s history.

But to focus on Crouch’s scoring ability – on and off the field – would be to miss the point.

Defoe did his best to explain away the use of his arm in scoring, and the guilty look before he commenced celebrating his goal. He said: "There may have been a bit of an arm, but you take them all. I did have a glance at the referee." With the ref, linesman and new-fangled “sixth official” next to the goal all missing his one-armed banditry, Defoe had little choice but to grin sheepishly at the post-match cameras. Before the game of course,

Defoe had let it be known he needed a hernia operation (he will have surgery tomorrow and misses England’s first two Euro 2012 qualifiers against Bulgarlia and Switzerland) but was prepared to play through the pain against Young Boys. He added: "Everyone wants to play in the Champions League. On Tuesday nights, you don't want to be at home watching Eastenders.”

But Spurs provided the soap opera moments in the teeming rain of north London last night. The little sinner, the cockney market trader shouting the odds from the sidelines, the massed ranks of anxious extras... and a starring role for the the lanky bloke caught in the love triangle. It was all there, complete with the fairy-tale ending.