Short-sighted Dalglish failed to see big picture

Last November, less than 24 hours before he would utter those infamous words to Patrice Evra, Luis Suarez posed for photographs with one of the world’s most famous athletes, who also happens to double up as one of his bosses.

LeBron James, the NBA megastar, was over for Liverpool’s home game against Manchester United to take in Anfield for the first time since he’d bought a minority stake in Fenway Sports Group.

Twenty years ago such a scenario was unimaginable. Few people outside North America had any interest in the NBA. Few Americans had any interest in the Premier League. No Uruguayan played in the Premier League. Come to think of it, the Premier League, or Premiership as it was known then, only started that year. The world was a much different place.

Since then the world has become a global village and the Premier League and the NBA have gone global. Over 350 million people in China alone either play or watch basketball. Over half of Manchester United’s 354 million fans worldwide are based in Asia. Liverpool have only a fifth of United’s support worldwide, on 71 million, as well as heavily trailing AC Milan (99 million), Arsenal (113 million), Chelsea (135 million), Real Madrid (144 million) and Barcelona (270 million), according to recent market research.

It was the challenge of helping Liverpool overtake some of those other superpowers in the popularity and commercial stakes that John Henry bought the club. He was inheriting a franchise with a rich tradition, which, if projected the right way along with a winning team on the field, could easily climb up that table. Then Suarez-Evra happened.

No one has looked more pathetic in this saga than Suarez himself, but Kenny Dalglish comes in a close second. Up until he and Suarez were made to issue apologies last Sunday by Henry’s people, Dalglish was stridently contending neither he nor Suarez had done anything wrong. His post-match interview last Saturday was particularly cringe-inducing, making him come across as a charmless smart-alec completely out of touch with the times and reality.

In defending Suarez, attacking the “bang out of order” Geoff Shreeves, bemoaning “24-hour news channels” and condoning the “banter” between the fans, Dalglish was playing to an old, hardcore constituency. In the old school and his world, you defend your players — no matter what — and you play to and yearn for the support of the Kop.

Anyone who has ever been to Old Trafford and its surrounding pubs will know the chants the United faithful sing are more about how much they hate their rivals rather than how much they revere their own heroes. The chants from the Kop are similarly vindictive. Munich isn’t sacred. Nothing, including what Suarez said to Evra, is. Yet the chants from the stands can be laughed off in the eyes of football men like Dalglish as harmless “banter”.

Up until Sunday at least, Dalglish still didn’t get it. It’s no longer about appeasing or appealing to the 45,000 at Anfield; it’s about appealing to the potential 45 million fans in Asia. It’s no longer 1992. It’s about staying onside with LeBron, a black American, and winning over all those kids in Taiwan.

To do that, you cannot be ambiguous on race. Alex Ferguson understands that. Everything he said last Saturday was on the money. Comparisons with his condemnation of Suarez to his own handling of Eric Cantona post-Selhurst Park are flawed. Ferguson and United suspended Cantona for six months before the FA ever did. Cantona duly amended his ways upon serving that suspension. In talking about “the history of that club” last Saturday, Ferguson was more respectful of Liverpool’s tradition than Liverpool’s own manager was in his post-match interview.

John Henry also knows the way the new world works.

America is currently buzzing with the uplifting story of Jeremy Lin. Just a week ago the son of Taiwanese emigrant was a journeyman basketball player, sleeping on his brother’s couch and on the verge off being cut by the New York Knicks before a few injuries propelled him into the starting line-up. Since then he’s averaging 27 points a game. No player in the last 30 years has scored more points in their first four starts.

On Friday night he lit up Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers for 38 points in Madison Square Garden, triggering the number of followers of his Chinese Twitter-like blog to hit nearly one million.

The following morning John Henry woke up to Suarez and Evra, and the following day then to the same New York Times that featured reams of pages on the joyous story that is ‘LinSanity’ also editorialising about the depressing Suarez scandal and Liverpool’s dreadful mishandling of it.

Henry and the Americans have taken control of matters now. Not only could Suarez be on borrowed time at Anfield but so might the Kop’s favourite son, unless he shows that he’s finally grasped that football’s a whole new ball game now.