'I never hated him': Patrice Evra on what he thinks about Luis Suarez, why friend Paul Pogba doesn't feel loved at Manchester United and how talking about his former club 'hurts my heart'
* Patrice Evra was focus of a bitter battle between two of England's biggest clubs
* Evra accused Luis Suarez of repeatedly calling him 'negro' during a match in 2011
* Suarez later admitted using the word but claimed it wasn't in a racist context
* Long before Brexit, he became a barometer for racial climate in English society
* Evra was the subject of death threats for his allegations against Suarez
For a few months in the fraught and angry winter of 2011, when football loyalties overrode what was right and wrong and high-profile allegations of racist abuse turned club against club and player against player and ruined friendships and careers, Patrice Evra found himself suddenly cast back on to the mean streets of Les Ulis, the tough suburb to the south-west of Paris where his character had been forged.
Evra was playing for Manchester United and living in the affluent Cheshire village of Alderley Edge by then but after he accused Liverpool's Luis Suarez of repeatedly calling him 'negro' during a match between the two sides at Anfield in the October of that year, he became the focus of a bitter battle between England's two biggest clubs amid an atmosphere that was increasingly racially charged.
As a simultaneous controversy raged over allegations of racist insults aimed at Anton Ferdinand by John Terry, a case which led Terry to quit international football in protest at his treatment by the FA, Evra was first accused of inventing the abuse and then forced to watch as supporters of Suarez resorted to arcane defences of his behaviour.
Former Manchester United star Patrice Evra has spoken about racism in football in England. Evra became the focus of a bitter battle between England's biggest clubs, United and Liverpool
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SEEING RED OVER LUIS SUAREZ
Evra was involved in a bitter racism row with former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez
Patrice Evra accused Luis Suarez of repeatedly calling him 'negro' when Liverpool faced Manchester United at Anfield in October 2011 (above left). Suarez was given an eight-game ban and fined £40,000 after the FA found him guilty of misconduct for using insulting words.
The Uruguayan later admitted using the word but claimed it wasn't done in a racist context. When Liverpool and Manchester United next met in February 2012, Suarez ignored Evra's handshake in the pre-match presentation (above right), a snub which Sir Alex Ferguson branded 'a disgrace'.
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Long before Brexit, Evra, who announced his retirement from the game last week after a career in which he won the Champions League and five league titles for United and two Serie A titles with Juventus, became a barometer for the racial climate in English society and in domestic football. He was the subject of death threats for his allegations against Suarez. His character was assassinated.
'I received a lot of letters of death,' Evra, 38, says. 'For months, I had a security car parked outside my house in Alderley Edge 24 hours a day. It wasn't easy for my family but I grew up on tough streets in Les Ulis so for me it was like something normal. But maybe for another person, it was crazy. Even my brother was saying "Be careful" when we were out in the car.
'I don't know if Suarez is a racist. I don't know his family. I don't know his background. But racism is so big for so many years and that day, there was racist abuse. So when we went to the hearing, they listened to me because I said I didn't want them to punish him and I don't know him close enough to say he is racist but he used that racist word.
'I don't hate him. I never hated him. I wanted to punch him at the time but for me to hate someone is impossible. I don't have hate in my heart. I can react but hate is a strong word for me. When I was asked to pick a team of my best players, I named Suarez as one of my XI. He was the best striker at that time.
'Why should I not recognise his talent even if he isn't a good person? I don't even know if he is a good person. We had one episode. At that time, I wouldn't have gone on holiday with him but I can't hate him.'
Evra received death threats for his allegations against former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez. The 38-year-old has admitted he 'never hated' Suarez following the bitter controversy. The former left-back said when English fans enter the stadium, 'they start to be like animals'
Suarez, who now plays for Barcelona, was fined £40,000 and banned for eight matches by the FA and Terry was fined £220,000 and banned for four matches. Even though Suarez inflamed the issue again by refusing to shake Evra's hand when United played Liverpool at Old Trafford, some hoped that the punishments and the debate they provoked would lance the boil of racism in the game.
That has not happened. If anything, the problem has got worse, certainly in terms of crowd behaviour. In 2017, after he had moved to Marseille, Evra was banned for seven months for kicking a Marseille fan who had racially abused him and insulted and threatened his family. 'That was what flicked the switch,' Evra says.
Last week, with the new season about to dawn, Chelsea announced it had banned for life one of the supporters who abused Manchester City's Raheem Sterling at Stamford Bridge last December. In the same month, a banana skin was thrown on to the pitch during the north London derby at the Emirates after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored for Arsenal.
The problem is there, too, in the way that black footballers are characterised as relying on 'pace and power' rather than, say, vision and intelligence. It is there in how they, in particular, are criticised for the way they style their hair — Paul Pogba is Exhibit A here — for the expensive cars that they drive or the luxury houses they buy, either for themselves or their relatives.
'When I first came to England in 2006,' Evra says, 'Didier Deschamps said, "You will see this country is so open, you can be on the street, people can have yellow hair and red hair and nobody cares". And I saw so many different people with crazy stuff, crazy dress, and no one cares because you are free.
'But when you are a football player, you are not allowed to have yellow hair. People are using this to create hate around that player even if he is performing well and I won't accept that. The problem is in the English game. Black players aren't abused when they walk on the street.
'I love England. I have lived so many years in England. You can't call the people in England racist. Italy is the same. But when they come in the stadium, they start to be like animals, acting like animals. That's when they start to use everything for you to have a bad game.
'Should I call them racists for that? I don't know. There are different ways to hurt a player but I don't know why you have to talk about his origin or colour. I don't think it should be up to the players to fight it. It is the league. If the league keeps accepting it, one day something bad will happen.
'The answer is not those official campaigns like Say No to Racism. I don't want to wear the shirt Say No to Racism. They ask me to do those campaigns but I won't because they are fake. The players don't even know what it's about. Some of them don't even want to do it. So when I did that first Instagram video when I was dressed as a panda, it was because I wanted to affect kids. If you're funny, you might reach more kids.
'But don't ask me to Say No to Racism like a robot because that won't affect anyone. I am happy to do a campaign against racism but in my own way. Maybe I'm crazy but it is a good craziness.'
Evra is sitting at a table in the sunshine outside a coffee shop in a thriving part of south London that could be a million miles from Les Ulis where he grew up as the youngest of 24 children, the son of a mother he describes as the "strongest person I know", a kid who admits he stole to survive.
Evra said soon after he joined Premier League giants United, he was portrayed as a gangster. Evra claims Paul Pogba doesn't feel the same amount of love at United as he did at Juventus
He says he often saw rats in the three-bedroom apartment he shared with his brothers and sisters and that he and three of his siblings shared one mattress. Soon after he joined United, he says he was portrayed as a gangster because some of his friends talked to the media about the life they had shared with him on the streets.
'I will never call myself a gangster,' Evra says. 'I don't like people when they use that to show they are tough. But I did bad things. I stole food from shops, clothes, video games, bikes, shoes. That kind of thing. I begged in front of shops for people to buy me a sandwich.
'I was seven or eight and I would say, "Sorry, do you have one euro". Sometimes, people would stare at me and say, "Do you think money falls from the sky?" It was hard. But I was still happy. Since day one, I was loving this game of football and that was always my escape. That's one of the reasons I don't like it when ex-players talk about the way players dress or the car they drive. They didn't steal anything. That's why I have a good relationship with the new generation: I don't blame them if they buy a new Rolls-Royce because they didn't steal it. They earned it.
'I have played in Italy, too, and they have thrown bananas and made monkey noises. When you are strong inside, these things don't touch you. They make you stronger. What I hate is when I know someone is weaker than me and it will affect them. In my life, I go through many things and you can't hurt me with monkey noises or bananas. It's when you talk about my family.
'But I'm here because it is not fair to do that to someone. We are living in 2019. It will start to be like a habit and that is really bad. We can talk about terrorism and when a bomb is somewhere, we just say, "Oh, another one". We won't be in shock because of the society we live in. Everything is a habit. But I worry that something really big will happen and that is why we have to stop it.'
Evra is busy completing his coaching badges and is hoping to move into management now that his playing career is over and is also involved in a fashion brand. He still has close ties with United, too. He is a close friend of Pogba, whose future at the club remains in doubt, and it was reported last week that he has been instrumental in talks to try to persuade Paulo Dybala to join from Juventus, another of Evra's former clubs.
Evra won five Premier League titles with United, as well as the Champions League in 2008. After a tough start to life in Manchester, Evra became a fan favourite at Old Trafford
'When I talk about Man United it hurts my heart,' Evra says. 'Because when I talk the truth, I will hurt people and I don't want to hurt people. It takes time to get back to where you have to be. The Busby Babes, the team of 1999, us in 2008, it was about dying for this club. That flag that said "United, Kids, Wife" never made me laugh because you have to sacrifice your family to play for this club and I don't see people doing that any more.
'I don't know what Paul's future holds. I do know that he felt really loved in Juventus. He doesn't feel that love in Manchester. We always forget what a player is about. A player is about performing on the pitch. So kill him when he is not playing well but if he is playing well, concentrate on that.
'When you buy nice cars and a big house, you will create hate and jealousy so you have to step up your game and make sure it doesn't affect you. That's why I say to Paul, "Do whatever you want but if you see it affects your game, stop. Don't try to be like a warrior. Stop".
'For me, money has never been something important in my life. Even at school when they give you the money for lunch, I gave it to my mum straight away. I love to share. Money helps you do things but it doesn't make you happy. Money won't cure you. Money is not everything. I was happy as well when I didn't have money. Money can make you go crazy, too.'
Evra thinks back over his career, through the rejections and the hardships when he was starting out and then to the moment when he made his debut for United in a lunchtime kick-off against Manchester City that went so badly Sir Alex Ferguson substituted him at half-time.
He says that his reaction to that trauma, even more than winning the Champions League in 2008, is the thing that gives him most pride in his career and still informs his attitude towards adversity and prejudice today.
'Because it was a lunchtime kick-off, I ate some pasta at 9am. Feel sick. Vomit in my room. I didn't have the courage to say to Ferguson I couldn't play because I felt sick. I was worried someone would say I was too soft and I was scared.
'At one point, I was on the post, defending at a corner, and I was thinking, "Oh my God, the football is so fast here, so quick, so strong, I should have stayed in Monte Carlo". Ferguson shouted at me at half- time and he said, "You, Patrice Evra, you stop, you watch and you learn English football".
'I went home and my agent was there with his wife and he said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I brought you here, you should have stayed in Monaco". I finished the next six months to the end of the season not the best. But in the holidays, I worked so hard, I missed the World Cup 2006, I came back for the pre-season, I was named man of the tournament (in Amsterdam).
'Mike Phelan came up to me and said, "Welcome to Man United, now you are a Man United player". This is my proudest moment. Not when I win trophies with them. That was the moment when I decided to show everyone who I am.'
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