Who Says Crime Doesn’t Pay?
Gyan and Mensah should never have had to try, let alone fail.
Having grown up in the age of the television remote and ever faster internet connection speeds, I’m fully aware that I have a short attention span. With that in mind, I find it impressive that I’ve just spent 90+ minutes, or one regulation football match attempting a single Google search.
For what, you may ask? Actually, I was hoping to discover the last time that FIFA made a fundamental change in the rules of the game. Some of the more knowledgeable readers of WFC, I’m sure, will be happy to tell me that the answer to that is never. FIFA, it turns out, is merely part of another body, IFAB, which decides those changes.
Comprised of the original football associations in the United Kingdom, the FA (England), SFA (Scotland), FAW (Wales) and the IFA (Northern Ireland), along with FIFA, the International Football Association Board deliberates over any changes to the rules of the game. I say deliberates, because it appears that, beyond trivial matters such as which undergarments players may wear (same colour as their kit, no endorsements of any kind) and what to do about advertisers who try to horn in on FIFA’s gold mine (arrest any group of sexy blondes in plain orange dresses you see, making sure to interrogate them thoroughly and sieze their passports), IFAB just gets together, has a few drinks and laughs at the Republic of Ireland.
What about on the field issues? Well, they’ve been debating whether to change the last man standing red card to yellow for almost 2 years, now. Instant replay technology was unanimously swept off the table in just a few hours. Given the partners which make up this august institution, you might expect that political infighting is keeping anything from getting done. It’s happened, here and there, but for the most part these fellows are a conservative lot and they seem to agree on one all-encompassing principle. Change is bad.
Which leads me to one conclusion. If it makes sense to alter or create a new rule, or improve the game in any way, IFAB isn’t interested.
Which rule do I want to change? I don’t believe a team should benefit, in the manner that Uruguay has, by advancing through intentional cheating to deny a goal. Yes, Asamoah Gyan missed the awarded pk but a penalty should not be given in that situation. What should be given is the goal that would have been scored otherwise.
If a defending position player, located on or near the goal line, deliberately uses his hand to stop what would otherwise be a certain goal, the offender should be shown a straight red card and the goal should be allowed. Notice that I have worded that carefully, using the word certain. There can be no question that Ghana would have scored at the death were it not for Luis Suarez’ 2 handed intervention.
Why, then, should a penalty be awarded? Penalty kicks are not guaranteed to score. They can be saved or, as in this instance, missed. Therefore, the offending team is actually being rewarded for cheating and the victim kicked while he is down.
The players don't write the rules but they should have more class than to celebrate a robbery in front of 80,000 victims.
If I offered you $100 in exchange for $83.10, would you take my money? I’m betting you would every time and happily. If the shoe were on the other foot, I’m thinking you wouldn’t be so eager. Given that, according to research, penalty kicks are converted 83.1% of the time, on average, that’s the exchange Ghana was forced to accept by the rules of the game.
Luis Suarez illegally prevented a sure defeat for his side in exchange for a roughly 1 in 6 chance to stay alive in the World Cup. The desperate gamble paid off. After the match, he was laughing and joking with his teammates. He won’t play in the semi-final but I’m reasonably sure he won’t be complaining. Anyone who loves the game should be, however.
So far in this competition, we’ve had refereeing mistakes affect 4 different goal scoring opportunities and now a loophole in the rules has been exposed in a 5th. Knee jerk reaction to infrequent occurrences is not always the best way to handle matters. On the other hand, 5 separate blunders in the space of 3 weeks doesn’t seem all that rare to me.
This evening in Soccer City, the better team lost. Uruguay celebrates, Africa mourns. Uruguay plays in the semi-final, Ghana goes home. Uruguay gets a bigger piece of the revenue pie for its ‘victory,’ the development of football in Africa suffers. Luis Suarez is a hero and likely receives a big payday by moving to a major club. Asamoah Gyan and John Mensah are branded failures for not being able to win the same match twice in one night.
Sepp Blatter shrugs his shoulders and says he’s sorry. FIFA will take the matter up after the tournament (transl., sweep it under the rug when no one is watching).
The powers that be in football have adopted the philosophy that life is sometimes unfair, in dealing with these issues. Life, of course, isn’t fair but the whole point of sport is the level playing field that allows the better team to win. I think it’s time that IFAB realized that the beautiful game is slightly askew and it’s their duty to do something about it.
Written by Martin Palazzotto
http://www.worldfootballcolumns.com/2010/07/03/who-says-crime-doesnt-pay/