Liverpool: Luis Suarez Was Well Within His Rights to Not Shake Evra's Hand

A lot of good football was played this Saturday. My Spurs beat a good Newcastle team 5-0. Barcelona lost 3-2 to an impressive Osasuna team fighting to make the Champions League. And Milan beat out fellow title contenders Udinese to climb to the top of Serie A.

Unfortunately, ahead of all the good football played, one headline has dominated today's football news: Luis Suarez snubbed Patrice Evra's handshake as the Suarez-Evra drama continues on.

Much has been said already about the snub. Sir Alex Ferguson has come out and called Suarez a disgrace, calling on Liverpool to never allow Suarez to play for the club again.

Kenny Dalglish, on the other hand, has blamed Sky TV for making a mountain out of a molehill, hyping up an incident he claims he hardly even noticed.

Harry Redknapp, acting as a third-party observer not involved in the drama, was much cooler on the issue. He explained that such an incident was always likely to happen, and that it might be a good idea to consider cancelling the pregame handshake with all the drama that it can create.

In a way, all three coaches are right, at least to some extent. Here's how.

Sir Alex Ferguson, as Manchester United's manager, naturally is right to be displeased with Suarez's actions.

Considering Evra told SAF that he intended to shake Suarez's hand beforehand, SAF rightly feels that Suarez single-handedly elevated the tension of the game when it was very possible for the whole affair to be concluded once and for all with a simple handshake.

Dalglish is right that Sky TV and the media did indeed elevate the tension around the issue.

Whereas the Wayne Bridge snub on John Terry was only mentioned lightly in the aftermath of the match between Chelsea and Manchester City, on this occasion the media took the opportunity to get opinions from Rooney, Ferdinand and others, unnecessarily flaring up the issue further for the purpose of creating drama that will, ultimately, sell more papers.

Finally, Redknapp is right to say that the pregame handshake does create drama and that, at the very least, in matches where there is bad blood between certain members of both teams, it may be best to cancel the prematch handshake until all is well.

Otherwise, unnecessary drama can result.

But most importantly, above all else in this issue, I want to make one thing clear: Luis Suarez was well within his rights to snub Patrice Evra.

Sure, shaking hands with Evra would've put the issue to rest. Sure, not shaking hands with Evra caused the drama to continue.

But when you get banned for something you believe you didn't do (and for as long as Suarez was), you're obviously going to be more driven to dislike or hate a person than you are going to be driven to reconcile with said person.

This isn't to say that Suarez is right and that he shouldn't have been judged guilty of racism. Plenty has already been said about that, and I have no intention of reigniting the debate here.

But, in Suarez's view, he wasn't being racist, and that needs to be understood and respected. And considering all the question marks surrounding the FA investigation and its subsequent report, it probably should've been anticipated that Suarez wouldn't just happily "let bygones be bygones" and shake hands with Evra shortly after the match.

I want to conclude by addressing the Twitter picture that has been making rounds around the internet lately, indicating that it was Evra, not Suarez, who refused to shake hands.

For Liverpool fans and Suarez fans clinging onto this as evidence that Suarez is an angel and Evra is nothing but a troublemaker, please try to be a bit more objective.

Footage of the actual handshake shows pretty clearly that Suarez was the one that snubbed Evra and not the other way around.

And besides, why would Evra have tugged at Suarez AND told Sir Alex Ferguson before the game the game that he intended to shake Suarez's hand? Just to give his evil conspiracy to ruin Suarez's life and reputation more support?

Let's not feed into the drama that has already been perpetuated by the media here. What Suarez did was easy to anticipate, likely to happen and should not have received the attention it did. It most definitely does not deserve to be the headline story on a day full of great football.