Luis Suarez: Liverpool Doesn't Deserve Intense Heat for Standing Behind Star

Luis Suarez hasn't received much support since allegations that he directed racially-charged comments toward Patrice Evra were made, but the Liverpool brass and his teammates have stood firmly behind the star striker.

David Maddock of Mirror Football reports that Reds manager Kenny Dalglish continues to be defiant despite garnering a lot of criticism for his stance:

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'(Luis was) Wrong place, wrong time, it could have been anybody,' he said. 'There are a lot of things we'd like to say; a lot of things we could say, but we don't want to get ourselves in trouble.

'We know what is going on, we know what is not in the report and that is important for us.

'It really is very dangerous that you don't know the full extent of the hearing, and what was said. It is up to the club to decide what we want to do about that.'

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Even though Suarez is currently enduring an eight-match ban for the alleged act, Liverpool has not backed down. Only two people understand exactly what happened and the Reds are deciding to believe the player on their squad.

Instead of being picked apart, the team should be applauded for standing up for what they believe is right. Far too often people in sports will back down in the face of pressure.

Dalglish and company decided they were going to take a more firm stance and haven't shown signs of changing their ways. There is obviously some background information the general public hasn't been made aware of, which makes it tough to vilify Suarez.

Nevertheless, there have been no shortage of opinions on the controversial matter. It's been a headline story for weeks and doesn't appear to be going away any time soon. While the Reds will want the focus to shift solely to football eventually, they have no problem making sure their message gets heard first.

It's tough to tell what type of impact this incident will have over the long term, but it might be looked back upon as a time when teams finally stopped backing down to authority and started fighting for themselves.

That's the best thing that could come from this otherwise ugly situation.