Suarez

The general media and social networks reactions to the latest Luis Suarez biting incident have left me strangely uncomfortable.

I doubt that my opinion will influence Blatter's FIFA but on the face of it Suarez is guilty as charged.  

He was probably wound right up up the Italians but that doesn't give him the right to take a bite out of a fellow player.

He's got history.  Is it three bites and out?

I'm uncomfortable about the mental health aspects. if there are any.

I've listened to the radio phone-ins and seen the 'hilarious' jokes on Facebook and Twitter and there are those who say Suarez may have mental health issues, some who say that he may have mental health issues but that's irrelevant and others who say he just bites people, that's just the way he is.  Ban him for life.

I have no idea whether Suarez has mental health issues but I have had them for a lifetime and I know from personal experience and from the experiences of others that it makes you do some pretty odd things, with some it makes you do some pretty bad things.

Some people I knew harmed themselves, some harmed others.  A few killed themselves too, all misunderstood, slipping below the radar.

When I was at my lowest, sickest ebb, I didn't make the best decisions, I didn't do things that I was proud of, I got a lot of things wrong.

As a distant outsider, I know two things: Luis Suarez is one of the greatest footballers on earth.  At the moment, he is up there with Ronaldo and Messi.  The second is that he is flawed, deeply flawed, and before we pronounce him guilty and condemn him to a severe punishment can we not just ask why?

Even in these so-called enlightened times, mental health remains the great taboo.  People don't like to talk about it, many who have never suffered from it think we should just pull ourselves together and get on with it.

In my case, I did try to pull myself through it, albeit with the assistance of a small army of therapists, counsellors and even consultant psychiatrists - oh, and anti-depressant drugs that at one stage left me unable to do anything other than lie down in a darkened room.

Is Suarez ill?  I have no idea.  Maybe he is just that way inclined, although how you would expect to get away with biting an opponent before TV cameras on a worldwide stage seems a little far fetched.

I'll bet those at Liverpool football club woke up today thinking, "Oh, hell.  Here we go again!"

Do they sack their prize financial asset, do they discipline him; what do they do?

I just hope beyond hope that the powers that be will say, okay, this has gone far enough.  Why does he do these things, is there something wrong, is there any way we can make things better so it doesn't happen again?

I am as aware as anyone that in Britain psychiatry is regarded somewhere below quack 'medicine' like homeopathy and we are quick to condemn someone who should 'snap out of it' when they are 'low' or even mad.

If Suarez is not ill, if Suarez is just a nasty piece of work, then throw him out of football and leave it at that.

But what if there is some illness running through him?

Yes, he needs to be punished - he's bitten someone, again - but maybe he needs to be cured too?