There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repenteth, says the bible, but you wonder how much joy there is among the hundreds of thousands of Uruguayans, not to mention their foul mouthed president, who stood so loudly by Suarez as a victim and an innocent kind of martyr.
There is something odious about Suarez’s volte-face. Gary Lineker who once played for Barcelona says he is informed that the club, which wants to buy Suarez, have leaned on him to make this grovelling apology.
It seems unlikely to get him off the disciplinary hook. And Barcelona may find they have been dicing with death; or at least with dire probability. For Suarez is what’s known in psychological parlance as a recidivist. This being an offender who will constantly repeat his malfeasance.
Yes, in some sense I can see Suarez as a victim, the victim not of FIFA, but of himself. Consider the situation when as he now belatedly and embarrassingly admits, he did bite Chiellini. Bit him in a World Cup match under a phalanx of cameras, and thus under the eyes of millions of television viewers throughout the globe.
An infinitely more huge audience than any which witnessed his previous bites at Ajax and at Liverpool where Chelsea’s Ivanovic was the victim. In each case he was fined heavily and given serious suspensions, but there was no global reaction.
Biting Chiellini meant inevitable condign punishment. However destructive it might have been to Chiellini, it was infinitely more self destructive to Suarez. In what you might call the heat of the moment, he was just incapable of controlling himself, to have any awareness of the consequences of his action.
In other words, it was self destructive, even psychotic, behaviour. And immensely difficult to treat even if following his grovelling confession Suarez should submit to any kind of psychiatric treatment.
Sigmund Freud himself has written that whereas neurotics may be susceptible to psychoanalytic cures, psychotics are not. They simply won’t admit their condition nor would they submit themselves to any kind of treatment. Meaning that sooner or later Suarez is going to do it again. He will bite for a fourth time, a huge fine and a long suspension will follow. Barcelona can but hope that it will be a goodish time before it happens.
Meanwhile you wonder what will happen to what you might call the collective paranoia evinced by the Uruguayan people; with very rare and brave exceptions. The shock must be tremendous. The hero may have magic feel on the field but morally he has feet of clay.
Jose Mjjica the president has, in the vernacular, abundant egg on his face. Democratic demagogue? Will he now apologise to FIFA?
