Do other countries cheat more than us, or just differently?

 
dasilva Roar Guru

By dasilva, 18 Oct 2009 dasilva is a Roar Guru

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Australia’s entry to Asia has been a godsend in terms of its positive impact on Australian football. However, one of the problems is that we are facing gamesmanship from oppositions of different culture that we do not regularly see in Australia.

The recent match between Oman and Australia brought up a major diplomatic incidence. We have Australian team manager Gary Moretti accusing the Omani team of cheating due to time wasting by feigning injuries.

This wasn’t the first time Australia has managed to get into a diplomatic incidence due to perception of unsporting behaviour.

We have Graham Arnold saying “Welcome to Asia” after responding to question about the opposition wasting time during the Asia Cup after they played Oman that manage to upset AFC President Mohammed Bin Hamman, as it implied that the entire Asian region were divers.

There was also numerous times during the AFC Champions League where the crowd has ended up booing the opposition team due to time wasting such as the Central Coast defeat to Tianjin Teda where Mariner’s coach Lawrie McKinna accused the opposition side of diving as well as Sydney FC matches against Shanghai Shenhua.

However it is noticeable that the Asian region does not consider Australians to be a paragon of virtue either.

We had the Oman coach Claude Le Roy accused Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill of cheating by continually harassing the referee. The Young Matildas manage to start a fight against the Chinese team during the AFC Under-19 Women’s Championship.

We have a reputation in Asia for being arrogant especially in light of some of the comments from Vince Grella after the Asian Cup debacle where he accused the opposition for not showing Australia enough respect.

There’s also the perennial worldwide perception (not just from Asia) that Australia are over-physical and sometimes thuggish.

The Japanese media do sometimes present Australia team to play thuggish football, the Netherlands complained about our physical style of play during the warm up to the 2006 World Cup after one of the players were injured as well as the French team during a Friendly match at 2001. Even in England, one of the most physical leagues in the world, Australian players have a reputation to be tough and dirty tacklers no doubt help by the reputations of Kevin Muscat, Danny Tiatto and even Lucas Neill.

All of this shows that there is a huge cultural impact that affects people’s perception of what is sportsmanship. Australia tends to celebrate physical prowess and therefore we are very much lenient on physical challenges and dirty tackles.

It says a lot about our culture that when people think of unsporting incidence during our time in Asia, the first things that came to mind was the diving and time wasting and not the X-rated challenge by Sun Jihai that could have potentially ended Luke Wilkshire career during the World Cup qualifiers.

Although starting a brawl is no doubt considered unacceptable in Australia. However there are people who considered the Young Matildas were just protecting a “mate’ who was unfairly kicked on by the Chinese team that prompted the brawl.

After all starting a fight to protect your team mate although not considered acceptable here, it’s certainly considered a mitigating circumstance that makes the action more understandable.

Although there is a clampdown on referee abuse in Australia, there are just as many people who believe that referees are overprotected species.

I believe that in more conservative cultures where respecting authority and the elders are considered much stronger values, abuse of referees a far less tolerated then in countries like Australia. After all, see how much the Omani players accepted the referees’ decision to not award the penalty during that match.

In other countries, time wasting and diving may not be considered sporting but is more tolerated as it shows intelligence, cunning and street smartness whilst they take a dimmer view on x-rated challenges.

So the next time we cry foul of unsporting conduct. Don’t try to get into the moral high ground. Just realise that they are no bigger cheaters than us, they just cheat differently.

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