Terry will face court charge of racial abuse.

[arooj]

Comments

[marsyke]

Why does Terry have to face court and is Suarez punished by the FA?

[mid_century]

Cause they are completely different cases ? ....oh wait

[arooj]

A member of the public complained to the Police after viewing the video of the alleged offence.

[shadow_sea]

Because someone made an official complaint to the police about Terry. Evra chose to go to the FA rather than make a police complaint.

[poodlewhisperer]

I'm confused. So basically; if and IF the police ~finds Terry to be guilty, can FA act on it and apply the same kind of ban they give to Suarez? And vice versa (police to charge Suarez after FA concluded that he's guilty of racism)? HELP ME TO UN-CONFUSE.

[shadow_sea]

Yeah, basically once the police have finished with the Terry case the FA will continue their own investigation into it which they'd already started but had to stop as soon as the police charge was made. It seems like they'll probably just go along with whatever the result of the trial is, so if Terry is found guilty in court the FA will fine and ban him, if he's found innocent they'll probably go with that.

And Evra can make a police complaint about Suarez at any time he wants. In that case though the police wouldn't just go off the FA decision, they'd have to go though all the evidence themselves and maybe come to a different conclusion which would really complicate things for the FA.

[sukha4]

If he is not found guilty and the FA just do nothing I think that's highly hypocritical of them.

You know I actually wish Suarez will be investigated by the police. The burden of proof is much higher in a real court than the arbitrary rulings of FA.

[verses]

No, you don't. The implications of a conviction for a foreigner are worse than for a national. Suarez wants to stay far, far away from the police.

[melj1213]

If the police find Terry guilty, then the FA can ban him because if there's enough evidence to support a criminal conviction for an offence then there also has to be enough evidence to support an FA conviction.

However, it doesn't work the other way firstly because the police don't get involved in FA investigations - they only investigated Terry because a member of the public made an official police complaint - and also just because there is enough evidence to support the case for an FA charge, that doesn't mean there's enough to reach the threshold for evidence requirement for a criminal case to proceed.

[sanysunshined]

don't you mean "if the court found Terry guilty"? Just asking, cause in Bulgaria the police is involved up until they form the case, then they file it in court and have nothing to do with it afterwards.

[arooj]

IF the police ~finds Terry to be guilty, can FA act on it and apply the same kind of ban they give to Suarez

Yes.

And vice versa (police to charge Suarez after FA concluded that he's guilty of racism)?

No, unless Evra decides to take it to the Police, which he won't. The big difference between the Terry case and the Suarez case is, that in one case there is a video, which was viewed by numerous people and caused a lot of offence hence the complaint by a member of the public to the Police.

[marsyke]

Thanks! I just found it bizarre that two 'racial abuse' cases were treated totally different, but this makes sense.