It’s a fine line, for sure. Cheating is considered by some to be part of the game, too. The referee is there to prevent cheating, and without VAR they are liable to fail. We do not tolerate cheating, but but we can not prevent all forms of it, only punish it when it is uncovered with some certainty.
The litmus test for somebody’s football beliefs, of this generation at least, was the Luis Suarez handball against Ghana at WC 2010.
When I was younger, I was bitter and thought it wasn’t fair. But I’ve come around. Handballs are part of the game. The punishment in that circumstance is a red card and a multiple game suspension. Most people would have done the same thing in his boots. If you want to remove cheating, you’d have to ban people from the sport. But I think people would prefer to have controversy than to have a synthetically clean game.
(Where I draw the line is tackling with intent to injure, or intentionally escalating physically dangerous situations. That is never OK.)
People are gradually trying to make the game more binary. They tried to make the handball rule more black and white this season, and many players and most fans agree it’s a regression.
The litmus test for somebody’s football beliefs, of this generation at least, was the Luis Suarez handball against Ghana at WC 2010.
Was Suarez justified in volleyball-spiking the shot out of the net? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tDpx9GGH79I
When I was younger, I was bitter and thought it wasn’t fair. But I’ve come around. Handballs are part of the game. The punishment in that circumstance is a red card and a multiple game suspension. Most people would have done the same thing in his boots. If you want to remove cheating, you’d have to ban people from the sport. But I think people would prefer to have controversy than to have a synthetically clean game.
(Where I draw the line is tackling with intent to injure, or intentionally escalating physically dangerous situations. That is never OK.)
People are gradually trying to make the game more binary. They tried to make the handball rule more black and white this season, and many players and most fans agree it’s a regression.