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Former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra discussed one of the hardest moments of his career on his former club’s latest podcast. On Monday, Evra recounted his 2011 encounter with former Liverpool striker Luis Suárez, giving more details on when the Uruguayan racially abused him during a Premier League match.
“I think people didn’t know what had happened behind the scenes,” Evra said. “It was during the game against Liverpool, we were playing very well and I was marking him during the corner kick. In Spanish he said, ‘Don’t touch me, I don’t speak with negro.’ In English, it’s ‘I don’t speak with the n-word.’ He maybe didn’t know I spoke Spanish and I asked him what he said and he was like, ‘Yeah, you’re right, I don’t speak with…. the n-word.’
“The referee came over and asked what was happening with us two. He’d seen my eyes change and he asked if I was OK. It told him he racially abused me and he said, ‘OK, we’ll talk after the game. Keep playing and don’t do anything silly.’
“I remember, during that game, I was talking to myself saying: ‘If you punch him now, people will see you as the bad one. People will forget about what he said.’ I was talking to myself: ‘Don’t do… do it…’ I wasn’t focused for the game.
“After the game, Sir Alex saw me fuming and he asked what had happened. David De Gea told him that Suárez had made a racist comment, he’d heard it. Straight away, we went to see the referee and I told him what had happened. I told him what had happened and the next day, boom… Patrice Evra in the papers. I didn’t know it was going to the papers. I thought it was just to the referee.”
In our new UTD Podcast, @Evra revisits that controversial 2011 meeting with Liverpool at Anfield...#MUFC
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) May 4, 2020
After this happened, Evra said he received death threats from Liverpool fans aimed at him and his family.
“For two months I had security everywhere I went,” Evra said. “They were sleeping in front of my house. Everywhere I went, the security followed me. It was a tough time, but I wasn’t scared. My family were scared, my wife and brother, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t understand why people hated me so much. They didn’t know the truth.”
The FA found Suárez guilty and he was handed an eight-game ban along with a hefty fine. Evra says he has since forgiven Suárez and doesn’t think of the Uruguayan as racist.
“I will never call Suárez a racist person, because I don’t know him personally,” Evra said. “Even when we played in the Champions League final, when I was playing for Juventus, I shook his hand in the corridor and spoke to him.”
