{"id":50301,"date":"2025-04-25T20:38:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T20:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/50301\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T20:38:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T20:38:13","slug":"former-manchester-united-defender-patrice-evra-to-make-mma-debut-and-calls-out-luis-suarez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/50301\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra to make MMA debut and calls out Luis Suarez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He has officially confirmed he is set to fight in Paris next month<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/0_Patrice-Evra-file-photo.jpg\" alt=\"Patrice Evra\" loading=\"eager\"  \/>Patrice Evra is set to make his MMA debut(Image: PA)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Patrice Evra has joked that he wants to fight Luis Suarez after announcing he will make his Mixed Martial Arts debut in Paris next month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The former Manchester United and France defender, 43, said he would even allow the former Uruguay international to bite him in a bout at Professional Fighters League Europe\u2019s Paris event on May 23 at the Accor Arena in Bercy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Evra took to X, formerly known as <a class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/all-about\/twitter\" target=\"\" aria-label=\"\" tabindex=\"0\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a>, to say: \u201cBREAKING: I\u2019m officially training for my first fight with @PFLEurope. They will pick my opponent\u2026 They asked who I wanna face. I said: Luis Suarez. I\u2019ll pay out of pocket. He can even bite me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Then Liverpool striker Suarez was fined \u00a340,000 and banned for eight games by the Football Association after being found guilty of racially abusing Evra during a game in October 2011.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">The South American was later handed a four-month suspension from football and banned for nine international matches as well as being fined 100,000 Swiss francs [\u00a365,680] for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at the 2014 World Cup finals \u2013 his third ban for biting opponents during his career.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1745613493_504_consent-placeholder.svg.svg+xml\" alt=\"\" height=\"90px\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Evra has been doing combat training for nearly a decade and has been preparing for his competitive bow alongside friend and PFL star Cedric Doumbe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">It has not yet been announced who Evra will fight against, and he said: \u201cYou guys should know by now, I love this game too. I\u2019ve performed on the world\u2019s biggest stages, won every major trophy in football, but PFL Europe Paris will be an incredibly special night for me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">\u201cI\u2019ve been training alongside the best in the world for years and they\u2019ll also tell you I\u2019m ready for this. I\u2019m going to put on a show at the Accor Arena on May 23, so come watch the spectacle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \">Evra spent eight and a half years at Manchester United, winning five Premier League titles among a host of honours. He moved on to Juventus in 2014 and retired six years ago, with his final appearances coming in a brief spell for West Ham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He has officially confirmed he is set to fight in Paris next monthPatrice Evra is set to make&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,27049,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-50301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-patrice-evra","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114400533199190607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}