Internet Job Websites and Scam Jobs

First of all, I wouldn't say I'm actively seeking a job at the moment, in case anyone from my work is reading this. Just every now and then I like to have a little look on the internet job sites and apply for a few vacancies that look half decent. I usually go for the ones that offer lots of money and I know I have no chance of getting, just because I'm one of those people who thinks somehow one day I'll will just have a good job that pays well without having to do any work to get it. Apparently that's something to do with being a Pisces.

Anyway, recently I joined the website Monster because I'd heard of a few people getting decent jobs from there, and then I saw an advert on the telly for the site that's actually just called Jobsite, so I joined that. On a side note about that advert, even though it sort of worked because I went and joined the site, I don't think the fella on it is the best person for an advert. You know, the "new job phobia" guy? He looks like a sex offender, and it takes one to know one. That was a joke... maybe.

sex offender?

Anyway, one of the main reasons I only look for jobs on the internet every now and then is because of the amount of crap jobs that the websites throw up. I think it's to do with the agencies they use, but they bring up a load of these jobs that I like to call "jarg jobs", in other words, they're scams. I know about these jobs because I was unfortunate enough to fall for it a few years back when I was out of work after quitting university. There was no monetary loss on my part, I just lost a day out of my life and to be honest I felt a bit stupid for it at the end.

Basically what happens is the job is advertised on these sites under a company name to make them seem legitimate and professional, there was one I was looking at the other week called 'Red Planet Marketing', and there's a few being advertised at the moment called 'Encore Interactive Ltd'. Then they advertise the job in such a way were they don't say what the job is, but they make it sound like it's a brilliant career move that will make you successful and rich. Here's an example from Jobsite.co.uk of these type of jobs coming up on a search, when I searched using my postcode:

Now as you can see them first three jobs are all with the same company, offer the same money, and have the same job description, yet they have different job titles. The are two more jobs lower down the page that can't be seen on that screenshot, that are the same again, but have the job titles "Customer Sales Advisor" and "Graduate Trainee". Can you see the different ways they are trying to draw people in, and also how they are trying to have their vacancy appear in as many job searches as possible. As you can probably tell, each one of them jobs is the same, just marketed differently. The company are quite clearly desperate to get people to join them, and the reason for that is because they are a form of pyramid scheme. If you were to apply for any one of them vacancies now, just as an experiment, I would guarantee you'll get a call back or some form of response in the next few days.

Before going any further I think it would be best to explain exactly what the job is. My 18 year old self, clearly more naive than my present self, and after just dropping out of uni and being desperate for work, fell for one of these job advertisements. I was called a few days after applying, and invited to an "appointment" the next day. I think they call it an appointment because it's not an interview, but they don't want to reveal to you what it actually is. In fact, even when you get there they try and conceal from you what the job is until the last possible moment. That is because the job you've applied for is door to door sales. Walking the streets all day, knocking on doors, and trying to sell things to people. Not what you expect after reading the advert. 

So I go to an office building in Liverpool, all suited up to meet the boss, along with quite a few other people. The office is another disguise for the true business, one receptionist and a fella who is the boss. The Pharaoh, as he would be known in the pyramid scheme. Anyway, long story short, I spoke to this boss who told me how he was earning £80k a year, how he had a business plan, all these business terms he used to entice people in, then I went out with someone who who already worked for them, and he told me about his business plan, and how he hoped to be up to that £80k mark one day, how he'd have groups of people working for him (probably expecting me to be one of them), and all this. Then after all that talk you're knocking on people's doors trying to get them to switch to Virgin Media.

So, the way the pyramid scheme works is that, quite simply, someone sits at the top and has people working for them, who in turn have people working for them, and so on. The idea being that everyone in the pyramid makes a payment to the person above them, or they get a cut. So the aim is to get higher up the pyramid to get a bigger cut. The description of this sort of scheme, as provided by Wikipedia, is: "a non-sustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sales of products or services to the public." Can you see how this fits in with these jobs? The key part of that is probably the "non-sustainable" bit. To go into further detail about how these types of employers try to draw you in, we can go back to Wikipedia which says: "A successful pyramid scheme combines a fake yet seemingly credible business with a simple-to-understand yet sophisticated-sounding money-making formula which is used for profit." 

The thing with the pyramid scheme is that in some cases it is actually illegal, and that is because it is basically a scam. A few people at the top may make a small amount of money off it, but it's impossible for everyone to make money. The people at the bottom almost always have to be at a loss. So if you go to one of these job's and they feed you the stories of how much money you can make, first of all it's only so they can make money off you, and secondly you might only be intended by them to be the person at the bottom who does in fact lose out.

So lets now have a look at one of these job descriptions on the internet, and see how this all fits in, and also how you can spot them when browsing vacancies:

The main thing to notice is that you never get an actual job description. You get all the language that describes how amazing the job is, but they never actually tells you what the job is. Straight away you should be suspicious of that. This "specialist marketing team in our respected Liverpool city centre office" sounds great doesn't it, but it is in fact a group of door to door sales people who work for one man and his receptionist in a one roomed office in Dale Street. They don't tell you that "the opportunity to represent international clients throughout Liverpool and Merseyside" means you will just be travelling all over the city and knocking on people's doors trying to get them to sign up to broadband. 

They love their jargon and business terms that they try to use to sucker people in, "increasing our client's base by meeting with customer's face to face", and what exactly are their "b2b"'s and their "b2c"'s. The event based campaigns they mention, well that's when you see someone standing in Asda with a Talk Talk stand trying to get people to sign up. "Representing some of the largest names in the Home Energy, Telecommunications and Security Industries." Notice these are all areas that involve people signing up to things. That's how they make money off people, by getting them to sign things. They're not at people's doors flogging a physical product, they make their commission with a signature on a direct debit form and the companies involved deal with the consequences later when someone sees it on their bank statement and doesn't know what's happening. Or they just hope the person doesn't notice, or doesn't want to go through the hassle of cancelling. The problem is the only people who usually do sign up to the stuff are the old and vulnerable who let the sales people into their house because they're lonely and fancy a chat and end up signing their life savings away.

Now I don't mean to offend anyone who works for a company like this doing a job like this if you're reading this blog. By all means put me right. In fact, I'm sure someone will have something to say about this, because in my research for this I came across a number of occasions were people were questioning or criticising this type of job on internet forums (usually student websites actually) and there would always be a comment stating how this job is great and how they're earning £350-£450 a week. However, the fact that these comments from different users followed pretty much the same script were a bit of a giveaway to the fact they weren't normal people.  

You see the people who do this door to door job, sometimes on the train travelling to their latest victims area, or if you're unlucky you'll have them knocking at your door. They wear their smart suits and believe in their business plans. But the problem is they've just bought into a lie that was sold to them by a fella in an office who thinks he's Alan Sugar, but really he's more like David Brent. They're cold calling at people's houses, which is often illegal, and they're part of a pyramid scheme, which is also often illegal, and they think they're some sort of entrepreneurs.

I don't know, maybe there is something good about this type of job, but when I see them on the internet I stay well clear.

@adamheath 

Brendan Rodgers, Rafael Benitez and Liverpool fans

Brendan Rodgers is manager of Liverpool Football Club. Rafael Benitez is not. However, if you were to listen to quite a few Liverpool supporters you would think it was the opposite.

There is no denying that Liverpool have declined somewhat over the past few years. It's not been as great a decline as some media outlets might have you believe, we've gone from finishing second three and a half seasons ago to playing in the Europa League and being current League Cup holders. With this slight demise, and also the increase in social networking, the voices of our fans who hark back to the days when we did come second are louder than ever.

I have no problem with people remembering the times we had under Rafael Benitez, but I think now, especially with him being Chelsea manager, things are going a little too far. A lot of our fans seem to be defending him all the time, and when he gets abused by the Chelsea fans they treat it as them abusing our manager and not their own. He's not our manager, and people need to let it go, it's getting embarrassing.

Another thing that annoys me is that, when Rafa was our manager, I found myself arguing his side all the time. He had nothing like unanimous support from our fans, I'd say it was a lot closer to 50/50. I remember hearing all the time that "winning the European cup just papered over the cracks", you don't hear anyone say that any more do you.  "He doesn't take the Premier League seriously", remember that? And even in the season that we did finish second, a good portion of our fans were not happy with the manager, blaming his defensive play, inability to beat the smaller teams, and even his rant about Manchester United for us not winning the league.

Rafa papering over the cracks

The problem is, Liverpool fans have this tendency to grasp onto something nostalgically and believe it's return will make everything better. We've done it for years. Ever since Michael Owen left there's been a large section of our support who have wanted to bring him back, with a false hope that for some reason playing for Liverpool will prevent him being injured for entire seasons. We burdened Robbie Fowler and Kenny Dalglish with the roles of saviours. Since Fernando Torres left he's been terrible, even in his last season for us he wasn't great, but for some reason we think just by being back at Liverpool he'll return to the player he was in 08/09. And now the same nostalgia is present with Benitez.

Don't get me wrong, a return of Torres and indeed Benitez could bring about a change of fortunes for the club and see us miraculously catapult back to the pinnacle of European football, but is there any point in lingering onto this false bit of hope? We're turning into a group of supporters based on if's and but's, if Benitez had stayed, if Torres had stayed, if Alonso had stayed, if it hadn't been for Hicks and Gillett... Sounds a lot like a criticism we make about another set of supporters, doesn't it? Well the truth is a lot of our own supporters are just as bad if not worse these days.

A lot of these same supporters who are constantly calling for a return to Benitez, are the same supporters who refuse to give Brendan Rodgers a chance. The reason I decided to write this blog was because a photograph has surfaced of Rodgers wearing a tshirt that has The Sun newspaper on the front of it. Many Liverpool fans straight away vilified him, which is what lead me to claim on twitter that they are "embarrassing". Fans of Liverpool football club who will publicly slate our own manager whilst they continue to show unwavering support for the manager of Chelsea. Makes sense doesn't it.

Brendan Rodgers wearing a "The Sun" tshirt

Now I hate The Sun, I understand why no one connected with Liverpool football should have anything to do with the rag, but it's better to try and get the full story before making a verbal tirade against your own manager. The photo was taken in June 2011 after Brendan returned from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. Part of a team led by Chris Kamara, the climb aimed to raise £500,000 help provide free nursing care for people in their own homes. So what's Rodgers supposed to do when he gets the call off Kamara, "hey Brendan it's Chris Kamara, will you climb Kilimanjaro with me to raise money for a charity that provides free nursing for people in their own homes." "Sure Chris, who's taking part?" "A load of ex footballers, oh and it's sponsored by The Sun." "Did you say The Sun are sponsoring it Chris? Well fuck the people who need nursing care in their own homes as they can't leave the house and can't afford private care, I'm having no part in this."

I'm not even going to use the argument that he wasn't the Liverpool manager at this time, because the response to that is that he should have morally known not to be involved with The Sun. However, how can you question a man's morals when he climbs one of the world's toughest mountains in aid of charity? When you look at the moral credentials of the manager of Liverpool, is it not more important to see that he did this charity work than the fact he wore a tshirt once? Brendan Rodgers did not make The Sun newspaper any money, and nor did he make any money himself off them. Lets not forget our own captain has made a fair bit of money in the past off exclusives for The Sun's sister paper, The News Of The World. But people are a lot quicker to forgive when it comes to the captain.

Liverpool fans seem to be in a strange place these days. I don't know whether it is to do with the current standing of the team, or whether it is just more noticeable with the increased platforms to air their views such as twitter and facebook. If we have a bad game, they're saying how poor of a manager Brendan Rodgers is, if we have a good game and get a good win he's a great manager. If Stewart Downing or Jordan Henderson have a bad game they're terrible wastes of money who need to be sold, if they have a good game we hear that they might come good. You can't back the winner after the race is over, you have to be behind it from the start. This is what is happening with Rafael Benitez now, because we haven't been back to the position we were in when he was manager, so it's easier for people to back him than it was then. But at the time I can guarantee that a lot of the same supporters did not like him.

I'm no Paul Tomkins, I'm not PR for the club, I accept that when the team are poor you can have a go at the players and the manager. I won't try and tell you that Downing did in fact make three passes with his right foot that all had 100% completion rate, which shows he is in fact a very versatile player. Criticise poor performances by all means, but keep to a certain level. If you're going to go all out on a player or manager, if you say they're never going to be good enough for the red shirt, don't then turn around and claim you backed them all along if they come good.

And for the record, I myself am completely behind Brendan Rodgers and I think Jordan Henderson is a great player, but Stewart Downing is a terrible waste of money and needs to be sold (you can hold me to them statements).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this quick rant and it's given a few people something to think about.

@adamheath 

The Best Club In The World...

With Manchester United vs Liverpool this weekend, there seems to be a lot of talk about who is the biggest team in England. On twitter earlier I was discussing this idea, what makes a big team and what arguments are invalid when measuring the size of a club. During this mini rant I had I went on to compare clubs across Europe as well as clubs around the world. This isn't an argument I'm going to go into here. I don't like talking about "who is the biggest club", I think it's a bit of a stupid argument for people to have because, like I said, the arguments presented are often invalid.

However, I do think there should be a way in football to determine the best football club in the world. At the moment we have the European Champions League, arguably the biggest club football competition in the world. The 'arguably' part of that is something I feel is long overdue to be taken away. Not by saying for definite that the Champions League is the best club football competition, but by creating a new competition that would determine the best football team in the world.

Chelsea win the 2012 Champions League

The most vocal opposition to the idea of the Champions League being the greatest club football competition in the world would no doubt come from South America. In South America they have their own continental club football competition equivalent to the Champions League, and that's the Copa Libertadores. However, in Europe you wouldn't find many people who know the last winners of the Copa Libertadores, the most regular winners, and indeed who the best teams in South America are.

Corinthians win the 2012 Copa Libertadores

Currently there is a competition held every year in Tokyo, the FIFA Club World Cup, that takes the winners of six continental club competitions and puts them against each other. This usually does lead to a final involving the European Champions League holders and the South American Copa Libertadores holders. However, this tournament isn't held in high regard by football fans, and the winners generally aren't taken to be the best team in the world. Sometimes, a team like Barcelona, who many already believe to be the best team in the world, may win the competition, but they don't need this trophy to prove anything. When Barcelona played in the competition in 2011, had they lost the final I'm quite sure the majority of people in Europe would still consider them the greatest team in the world. This competition is more of a money making gimmick, and is not a suitable process for determining the greatest team in club football.

The FIFA Club World Cup.

You probably didn't even know

what it looks like

The South American teams that enter the Club World Cup do actually take the competition very seriously. This is because they want to go up against the best teams in Europe and prove their worth against them, and prove they're better than them. However, the teams from Europe rarely take the competition as seriously, and you can't really blame them as it interrupts their domestic season, and is also not really worth the effort for them to win a trophy that is not considered a major honour in Europe anyway.

My idea is that there should be a football tournament on the same scale as the current FIFA World Cup, but for club teams rather than internationals. A competition that would be held every four years, with the best teams from the six continents going against each other for one ultimate prize - to be named the best club football team in the world. I may be wrong, but I'm sure the popularity of this competition would be as equally high in Europe as it would be in South America and the rest of the world. A chance to see teams face each other who have never had the chance to go head to head before. Giving your team the chance to face teams you've only heard about, and never been able to watch on television regularly.

Of course, obvious problems arise when considering a competition such as this. The first question most people would ask would be how do teams qualify for it? Well, my idea (even though I'm sure people will find flaws in it straight away) would be to have a points system in the Champions League, Copa Libertadores and the other equivalent competitions, that ran over the four seasons prior to the Club World Cup. The finals of the tournament would apply the same format as the international World Cup, with 32 teams starting out in 8 groups. The amount of teams from each confederation that would qualify for the competition is debatable, however, my suggestion would be that 12 teams from Europe would qualify, 12 teams from South America, and 2 clubs each from the other 4 continents, making the total of 32 teams.

Qualification would work like this: you are awarded points for games in the Champions League or equivalent competition. But looking at the Champions League as an example, you would only be able to win points once you were in the group stage, and you also only get points for winning. The reason preliminary rounds don't count is because that would be awarding a team for their league position and not their performance in the actual competition. Also, points aren't awarded for draws simply because this would give teams a greater incentive to win, particularly in the group stages. But this would also apply to the knockout rounds, were the reward would come for getting through to the next round. 

So with that being said, the points system would work like this... A win in the group stages would be one point, a win in the first knockout round would be two points, a quarter final win is 3 points, a win in the semi final is 4 points, and for winning the final you'd earn 10 points. The reason there is such a large increase in points from the semis to the final is because the semi final has two legs, so there is an opportunity there to gain 8 points, and the final has to be worth more than the semi final. 

Qualification would take place over four years prior to the competition, with the last year for qualification being the season the finals take place. Therefore the actual Club World Cup would be up to date with who are the best teams at the time. The finals can not take place in the same year as a World Cup or European Championships, so they would have to take place a year before or after the World Cup. As we are currently in a year before the World Cup, I have made an example of who would have qualified for the tournament from Europe if it would have taken place in 2011, based on the points system mentioned above.

I've actually missed the 12th European team off, that would have been Porto who had 15 points. So I think from looking at this table you can see that the points system is fair, with all the Champions League winners making it to the finals.

Applying this system to the other competitions you would get a fair sample of teams from each continent to take part. The finals would start off with 8 groups. As there are more than 8 teams from Europe and South America there would have to be groups with clubs from the same continent in, but you would have the top European team in a group with the lowest South American team, and the rest of the continents are unseeded. So every group would involve a European team playing a South American team, and I think this would be of great interest to the world of football. 

I don't know whether many people feel the same way as me, but I personally enjoy club football a lot more than international football. I think if this competition was introduced it would get more interest than the international World Cup. If my team weren't playing in the competition I'd still watch it with great interest, the same way I do the Champions League or World Cup when my teams aren't in them.

Anyway this was just some thoughts I had I'm not sure many people will like the idea, I am sure that a lot of people will find flaws in the competition though, so let me know if you do. Thanks for reading 

@adamheath 

Internet Porn

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Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railways

This is stepping away from the subject matter of my usual blogs, but I just felt like doing a little critique. I saw Chris Tarrant: Extreme Railways on Sky Anytime today, and I decided to watch it. I don't know whether this is normal, but there's always been something about trains that interests me. I don't know why, maybe it's because I was a fan of Thomas The Tank Engine as a kid, but this interest I have is what made me decide to watch the show.

Anyway, from the opening of the show it looked like it might be quite interesting, Chris previews some of the adventures he will be going on and it looks like it will be quite entertaining. From his opening line, he says "I love travelling". Well I'd just like to get this out the way now - bullshit! If Chris loved travelling, he wouldn't have spent half the show moaning, but we'll hear more about Chris's moaning as this blog continues. Back to this episode, and after the interesting opening sequence showing some of the journeys Chris will be going on during the series, he comes out with the line "I aim to discover how these extreme railways are built, how they're kept running, and how they change the lives of the people they connect to the outside world." Thanks for that Chris, but this isn't your dissertation, we didn't really need to know that, I just want to see the choo choos mate.

In the first episode Chris is in the Republic of Congo in Africa, he sums up the journey he'll be taking today by basically saying it'll go through the jungle. He goes the station, and this is were the complaining starts. "This train is going to be absolutely heaving" says Chris after seeing all the people at the station. Well sorry you've traveled to one of the world's poorer countries, to film a tv show about extreme railways, and they haven't laid on a private train for you. Next, the train is late, and Chris isn't happy about this at all. Forget the hundreds of Congolese people who rely on this train, Chris Tarrant, on his jollies paid for by Channel 5, for a show called Extreme Railways, has to wait around a few hours for a train. Chris tells us no ones allowed on the platform, but then he's allowed out to see what he's going on, probably because he's white and has a tv crew with him.

So here's all the Congolese locals waiting for the train...

and here's Chris after he was allowed on the platform...

Hard life isn't it mate.

Chris's moaning gets even worse after that, he even gets the head of the Congolese railway network down so he can have a go at him. Here he is, looking like a bit of a gangster:

So the poor locals who use this train all the time deal with it, but the day Chris is traveling we must get the head of railways down. Sly. I mean, fair play if Chris wants to travel on Merseyrail and his train's late, by all means get the head of Merseyrail down and have a dig, but it's a bit sly to travel to a third world country (I'm guessing they're third world, sorry if they're not) and complaining that their rail network isn't up to scratch. I'm not arsed, I'd gladly get paid by Channel 5 to travel to The Congo and wait for trains. But this isn't the last of Chris's moaning, in fact we're only about 15 minutes into an hour long show. When the train eventually arrives Chris still isn't happy...

The train is heaving, as earlier predicted by Chris, but this is all part of the extreme railways experience is it not Chris? Naturally, so what does Chris do, sit with the locals and enjoy the culture...

Nope. He goes and stands at the front of the locomotive. Bellend. Fortunately, this decision is made more entertaining for the viewer when Chris gets absolutely soaked when the train goes through a tunnel. The tunnel provides more entertainment, as Chris retires to carriages with the riff raff because "he needs some kip" (more complaining), the train only goes and breaks down. This leads Chris to ask the question "does the fun ever start?" And again I go back to the fact he's making a programme called Extreme Railways. Literally the whole time the train is stuck Chris complains, it's so annoying, whilst the local people have a little sing song to pass the time. They quite clearly should've got someone else to present this show. Also, as a side note, the woman Chris is sitting next to on the train has pink eyebrows, but they never mention this or explain why, isn't that a bit weird? 

And also, as another side note, get on how mad this goat is, it proper just bails right in front of the train and lives to tell the tail:

Don't worry though, Chris is eventually rescued from this nightmare, and they reach the next station. We now get a quite a bit of informative content. Chris speaks to another head of the railway network who tells him about where they buy their locomotives from and how they're skint so they can't afford any good ones and also how all the track is ruined, and we also see the workshop where they fix the locomotives. Chris then finds a "new mate" as he describes him, who explains the signalling system they use. It was at this point where I discovered Samuel Eto'o works for the Congolese railway network...

There he is, in the bottom right hand corner. And that's not even me being racist, he's genuinely the spit of him. Nelson Mandela behind him is Chris's new mate Daniel, in case you were wondering. Interestingly, when Chris first meets Daniel, he says "you look so smart", in a rather patronising tone. That's racist. Daniel is good to Chris, he takes him on a trip down the original railway that has been closed for years on a maintenance train. It was built by the French in the 1920s when they occupied the country, and goes through the jungle. Isn't that exciting for train enthusiasts, going down an old railway line that no one has used for years through thick jungle. Of course, Chris complains. Seriously though, how fun does this look:

After spending the whole journey making mock cries for help, and talking to Daniel like he's a child (he speaks French Chris, he's not thick) we get a bit more education from Chris about the history of the railway. After this Chris decides to continue his journey, but for some reason now Daniel is going with him. Anyway, they'll now be travelling on one of Congo's new trains, the Gazelle. "The Gazelle is a luxury passenger service boasting all mod-cons" Chris tells us, and he's ecstatic when he sees they have a bar on board:

Well sorry Chris, but if that's what you wanted from this journey you should have stayed at home and took a Virgin. Anyway, the Gazelle will be taking Chris on the rest of his journey, so he's a bit happier. He even states "if this really is the future of the Congo ocean railway, I like it." Well I'm happy to hear that Chris, and I'm sure the people of Congo are. I'm sure you'll be back, using your own money to pay for the trip, to travel on the Gazelle again. 

Chris is now at the end of his journey, but he tells us there's one more famous sight he still wants to see. This sight being the famous rapids of the great Congo river. However, he can't resist another moan on his way to see it, as he tells us how he was "squeezed into a dugout canoe". Looks like hell Chris...

The show ends with Chris sitting on the rocks at the side of the rapids, he's "always wanted to come here" apparently. He ends by talking about his trip a lot more positively, even though he's just spent the whole show moaning about it. If the railway hadn't been built it "would have been a great shame" for him. Hmmm...

In conclusion, I can't understand why Chris Tarrant made this programme if all he does right the way through is moan. If they would have got someone more positive, who got really involved with the trip, it would have been a lot better.

here's a link to the show if anyone wanted to watch it http://youtu.be/fxHv77QKjGs

@adamheath 

Suarez Revisited

For the second time I have felt the need to write a blog because of Luis Suarez. Again, I find myself defending him, and again, he seems to be the victim of a witch hunt.

Today I read an article quoting Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny labeling Suarez a cheat. I won't quote everything he said, but one of his accusations was: "He is a player who likes to dive as soon as there is contact."

Koscielny is just the latest in a line of critics to attack the Uruguayan and label him a cheat. Now, as a Liverpool fan, I watch Suarez week in week out, and all I see is a player who gives everything in every game, clearly loves the game of football and wants to win. I honestly don't understand where this "reputation" he has has come from.

Now, I'm not denying Suarez has dived, the dive against Stoke was comical, but it's not something he does on a regular basis or something he does more often than any other player. And when I say player, I don't just mean foreign players, I include British players in this as well, see Ashley Young, Danny Welbeck, Gareth Bale, and our own England captain Steven Gerrard.

However, these players have never come under the same sort of attack as Luis Suarez has. Now, on twitter and facebook, I always see people stating that they hate Suarez, or words to that effect, but I don't know why. Well I do, because he's a brilliant player and he plays for Liverpool. If I asked you to name incidents that make you hate him, I'm sure the response, first of all, would be the handball in World Cup 2010. I really don't understand the controversy surrounding this. One of the unwritten rules of football, that all players will attest to, is that if you're on the line and the ball's going in, and you can't get to it with any part of your body except your hand, you take one for the team. A penalty and a red card is better than a goal. Okay if you're 5-0 up you let them have the goal, but at 1-1 in extra time of the World Cup quarter final, you're not going to let the other team get the winner.

Another incident that would probably be mentioned would be when he bit an opponent whilst at Ajax. Bare in mind he was 23 at the time, this is no excuse, but he was still relatively young. A moment of madness, most people would probably think it was great if Balotelli did something like this.

Finally, and most obviously, is the racial abuse incident involving Patrice Evra. I don't want to go into too much detail on this, as it's in a previous blog. But the punishment in relation to the evidence presented still shocks me, as well as the media uproar it caused. This is what has harmed Suarez the most, and I imagine John Terry will not be subject to the same ordeal. Terry has already been let off with a lesser punishment for what was, in my opinion, a worse crime, that also had clear video evidence.

The media are the biggest culprits in continuing the Luis Suarez witch hunt. In my opinion it is lazy journalism. Ask anyone in football about Luis Suarez, get them to say he's a cheat, and this is, in their opinion, newsworthy. The problem is, the reason the people they're quoting think Suarez is a cheat is because the media told them he is, and not because they watch him week in week out like I do, and see that a cheat is one of the things Luis Suarez actually isn't.

Now I have my own theories about why Suarez has been the victim of this hate campaign, but I won't go into to much detail as I will probably be labeled a conspiracy theorist. However, lets suffice to say I believe Suarez is a great player, up there with the best in the world, and could easily make the first team of the best clubs in the world, ie Barcelona and Real Madrid. I'm pretty sure Suarez will end up at a club like this at some point, because he will be forced out of the country by the hate he receives off his people.

I can compare this scenario to one involving another player, and that is Cristiano Ronaldo. Today, the media praise Ronaldo, they love him, he is one of the best if not the best footballer in the world. But his time in England was tough, he was also labeled a cheat, and was made public enemy number one after the 2006 World Cup. Why? Because of a wink. A wink.

So what will happen to Suarez? He will leave this country at some point, no doubt the media will be made up. Fans of other teams will be ecstatic. Then, when he plies his trade in Spain, or Italy, or Germany... our country's media will love him.


@adamheath 

Justice For The 39

This is a blog I wrote nearly five years ago after the 2007 Champions league final. It doesn't really have anything to do with current events, but I think the treatment of Liverpool and it's fans at the moment has some similarities. Also, the comments I made back then about how people who sing "justice for the 39" to us don't really care about getting justice for them, is similar to the way people are using the racism incidents as an insult to Liverpool fans, or a means to sell newspapers, but they don't actually have any interest in eradicating it from the game.


Justice for the 39. That's what it all comes back to, in fact thats what it always comes back to when your a Liverpool fan. When you're following a club with a history such as ours its hard to go anywhere or do anything without certain incidents being brought up.

Uefa have compiled a dossier labelling the fans of Liverpool Football Club as the "worst fans in Europe". On the surface this is a harsh accusation as the dossier has supposedly been compiled over the past four years, however, this dossier clearly has bitter roots dating back to 1985.

Head of Uefa Michele Platini was a European cup winner in 1985 with Juventus, in the final Juventus opponents were Liverpool. When Liverpool fans charged at Juventus fans in the "neutral" section of the Heysel stadium in Brussels thousands of Italians were forced back against a wall forcing it to collapse. 39 Juventus fans were killed.

It is understandable why Platini should dislike Liverpool. Obviously, like many a Manchester United fan he wants "justice for the 39", or does he? The simple answer is no. What has Platini done to get justice for those thirty nine supporters who died? Nothing. The real reason he dislikes Liverpool Football Club and in particular its supporters is that they denied him the chance to lift the European cup as the presentation of the trophy was cancelled for fear of crowed trouble. This is a very selfish attitude considering thirty nine people lost their lives.

Similarly, do those Manchester United fans and other English supporters who mock our fans with cries of "justice for the thirty nine" really shout this because they want justice? No, they dont give a shit about families who lost loved ones, they wont be showing their support to Juventus. They, like Platini, selfishly do this out of their own bitterness about being kicked out oof Europe. Liverpool fans accept this, but dont bring the lives of people you dont give a flying fuck about into the equation.

On the contrary, we are a club who have had to deal with death on a large scale. This has, perhaps, brought our supporters closer together. More importantly, however, made us understand the situations of those people who lost loved ones at the Heysel more than any other cunt who decides to shout "justice for the thirty nine" in our direction. Unlike Platini, unlike supporterrs from other clubs, Liverpool have lead the fight for Justice. "In memory and friendship" was the message displayed by 12,000 kopites in the match against Juventus two years ago, and this message also resides in the trophy rooms of anfield and the delle alpi, representing the bond that both clubs have formed through our own suffering. There is also a friendship group set up by Liverpool FC, who's most prominent memebr is Peter Hooton from the Farm, who help form bonds with the familes of the thirty nine supporters who died by bringing them over to Liverpool and showing them round Anfield.

So those fans who proclaim "justice for the 96? what about justice for the 39" shoud do some research before they insult us. Of course we have to take the abuse, because like i mentioned before our history will always be brought up. Also, Michele Platini should forget his own selfish campaign against the people of Liverpool, he stood on the pitch at anfield two years ago and accepted a plaque off ian rush, but what does he care about those 39 lost lives?

But he hates us, what can we do. Trouble in Athens was exactly what he wanted. When Uefa's cock up comes to the fore he can simply turn round and say it was our fault, after all we do have a history of it dont we? However the reality is the majority of Liverpool fans our miles ahead of the rest due to past experience. We've travelled to troublesome places such as galatasary where two leeds fans were killed and had no incidents, and been to Rome were Man utd clashed with riot police and had relatively little trouble and none involving the police. Uefa claim that over the past four years there have been 25 recorded incidents of trouble regarding Liverpool fans in Europe, now surely if that was the case it is them who should be learning from their mistakes. To quote the Liverrpool Echo, "If you were told that there'd been 25 burglaries in your street then would you leave the front door wide open and turn the alarm off?" Why play the champions league final in a city with a shite police force and an athletics stadium with no turnstiles if you knew the team playing had the "worst supporters in Europe". It stinks of incompetence, but not as much as the dossier itself being produced to cover Uefas tracks. It is, of course, a work of fiction. The day before the final William Gaillard, chief spokesman for Uefa, claimed that he was not worried about trouble because both Liverpool and AC Milan fans have an excellent record. Now he claims over the past four years we've beeen the worst. The fact of the matter is that Uefa fucked up.

So are we supposed to accept this sweeping generalisation Uefa have made, yes we are worse than the Italian fans who left the wife of a police officer widowed, worse than the French fans who held an anti-semitic rally which turned violent and resulted in the death of an officer from the Gendarmerie, worse than the Inter Milan fans who on one occasion launched a scooter from an upper tier of the San Siro and on another caused a Champions League quarter final match to be abandoned by hurling flares on to the pitch, worse than the Man United fans who clashed with riot police in Rome.

It looks like we are, for even though Uefa's organisation has been at fault once again, we are always going to be their scapegoat for we have heysel in our history books. They are pointing the blame in our direction to deflect themselves, and theres nothing we can do about it because people with lack of knowledg on the events in 1985 and the consequences since then see it as us blaming Uefa again. Liverpool fans have accepted responsiblity for Heysel even though it was only partly our fault, and now responsiblity for another Uefa fuck up is being landed on us. Sky sports can keep showing the same 15 second clip over and over again and people will believe that represents the whole of our support, but whether you choose to accept it or not we have learned from our mistakes.