Some cultures consider cheating an artform
Roar Guru
By dasilva, 9 Jul 2010 dasilva is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- 2010 World Cup, cheating, Cricket, drugs in sport, football, Kaka, World Football
Cheating and unsportsmanlike behaviour has been a scourge of sport since time immemorial.
Professional sports are a highly competitive environment, with a lot of money and prestige on the line and where athletes are generally judged solely on results.
Therefore, it isn’t surprising to see sportsmen who push the limits of the law or even break the law to get an advantage: whether it is to commit handball, claim a catch that bounced first, using blood capsules to feign injuries, using performance enhancing drugs, salary cap rorts, tanking or even bribing the referee.
So no sport is truly innocent in terms of cheating (which I define as deliberately breaking the rules).
However, football has been getting a lot of flak recently for the amount of cheating in this World Cup.
Although fans of football may point out that cheating is hardly unique to this sport, and may start debatating whether cheating is more common in other sports, this generally missed the point on why people find cheating in football so frustrating.
Although I suspect, without any statistical evidence to back up my suspicion, that cheating is more common in football compared to any other sport, this is rather irrelevant.
Football is a world game that represents 208 nations and 208 different cultures.
There isn’t a consensus on what is considered cheating amongst all the nations. Some cultures don’t view breaking the rules of the game as cheating.
They will claim that it is not against the rules to handball to prevent a goal. It is only against the rules to handball to prevent a goal, and then keep on playing unpunished and hence Suarez did not cheat.
Therefore, that type of handball is considered a legitimate tactical option to be used at certain parts of the game by some cultures.
Some cultures also see deceiving referees as a glorified way of sticking it up to authority, which therefore justifies injury feigns and diving.
They may think that deceiving referees is an art form of its own. The Italians call it furbizia, the art of guile. Players who excel at deceiving referees, and provoking opponents for a red card, are sometimes celebrated for their intelligence, cleverness and street smart attitude.
Players who lack the guile are considered to lack talent.
There are football schools in the world that teach players to dive.
The result of this is that players can be considered a national hero for deliberately breaking the rules of the game. Suarez was considered a hero for Uruguay, and Maradona’s hand of god goal added to his legacy amongst the Argentinian people.
Some countries believe that football is a game that tests both the guile and the skills of the player, so it’s very difficult for FIFA to create disincentives for cheating in this game.
The second problem is that there is a lack of disincentives for cheating.
In most sports, if players get caught on video evidence of cheating, they will get punished.
Unfortunately, football has a very anti-video technology stance, not just for in-game use, but for post-game use as well. There is no post-match video review to watch over the game and suspend players for unsportsmanlike activity.
Therefore, this has created a cheating culture in football, and if you don’t conform to it, you put your team into a supreme disadvantage.
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Dominic Herzberg said | July 9th 2010 @ 8:27am | Report comment
I won’t respond to your conclusion that cheating is related to your cultural background as this is ridiculous. But I want to point out some things.
Every time you stop another player by a foul you break the rules. You stop him by a tackle you aren’t supposed to do. So you’re cheating. That is your perspective, fact. But tackles are part of the game you won’t deny it, would you? So everybody who tackles someone cheated on purpose, that is the main conclusion of your article.
I don’t know why you think that some things are worse than others. If a striker is running onto the goal and a defender destroys his legs just to save his team from a goal, it’s even worse then playing the ball with the hand. He accepts that the other player might gets injured for the whole tournament or season. You saw the foul by Kevin Prince Boateng at the FA Cup Final against Ballack? That tackle took the opportunity to play his last world cup as he won’t play the next one because he will be too old.
Isn’t that more cheating than saving your own team in a quarter final by playing the ball with your hand? Do you really think that things like these deserve a harder punishment than taking someones health to risk? I don’t think so.
But in my opinion you can break the rules. That is not a problem, you just have to face the consequences, which should be relativated to the thing you did. There is no harder punishment than a red card, you could get banned for 1 game or 10, but that doesn’t affect the actual game. There couldn’t be anything worse than being thrown off the field. So what’s your recommendation to prevent cheating? And where does cheating starts and where does it end? As I said, every time you break the rules you’re cheating, it doesn’t start when you play the ball with your hand.
Also I want to add that there is a review after every game. And if you i.e. smack someone on the field you will be punished afterwards. That’s nothing new and it happens a lot.
“There are football schools in the world that teach players to dive.”
That’s true but in a different way. The player were taught on getting in situations where the defender has to play a foul. That’s a small difference but an important. Ever been to a football school in Europe or you just read those things on message boards?
I won’t start arguing that whole culture thing, but make sure that this never backfires on your team. There are eleven individuals on the field, they play for their countries but they don’t represent them. Also a small difference.
And at least, what do you think should happen to a player like Suarez? Should he been hung in the middle of the country as an example of how to treat cheaters? I say it again, he broke a rule in a football game, he didn’t start a war.
Art Sapphire said | July 9th 2010 @ 10:10am | Report comment
Domenic – thanks again for articulating such a reasoned response. Your international perspective is most welcomed.
Due to Australia’s uniqueness in having 4 football codes, pieces like dasilva’s only add fuel to the fire for people who either do not like the game of football or don’t wish to develop a deeper understanding of the game.
All they end up doing is highlighting the “negative” aspects of the game. Your experience on this site will tell you as much.
I don’t even know why some people even bother watching considering they are being feel morally corrupted every time they watch a game of football.
dasilva – these pieces are getting tiresome. Try writing something interesting about football.
You might end up getting more responses.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:14pm | Report comment
I think Tactical fouls is cheating and actual prevents attacking free-flowing football in the game and actually damages the game as a spectacle.
When Ballack gets yellow carded and suspended for the World Cup final in 2002 for a tactical fouls. The reaction that he was self less and self sacrificing was something I disagreed with.
__________
I think when people make a tackle but mistime it and causing it a foul. It’s not really cheating but the player has to learn to improve his tackling technique.
However when players deliberate foul another player. Then I think it is cheating.
It may be considered a misdemenour but it should be viewed that way.
Art Sapphire said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:22pm | Report comment
dasilva – I think you have a pretty naive and moralistic view of competive sport.
Managers ask their players to make cynical challenges to nullify the opponent.
This happens in all sports.
Its up to the ref to pick this up and punish the player.
Van Bommel got away with it against Brazil.
What are you going to write next?
How about “managers must be nicer to their opponents” ?
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:37pm | Report comment
Yes people would do what they can to win.
To be honest, I pretty much accept that tactical fouls as well as injury feigns and diving as part of the game. The fact is cheating is a part of professional sports and I accept that. Nevertheless I’ll still call it cheating though. I don’t think I get too moralistic and I don’t really blame players for it especially for the more minor offenses (just like in my penalty goals article, I didn’t really blame Suarez for his handball).
Nevertheless I just don’t think players should be celebrated for doing that.
My view is generally that it’s the role of FIFA to create disincentive to cheating to ensure that the game be as much as a spectacle as possible.
There was some good ideas in the rule change threads by some of the readers on how to prevent tactical fouling like, replacing the yellow cards with sin bin.
AndyRoo said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:26pm | Report comment
A good example of this was Klose and his two yellows against Serbia. A lot of people complained about Klose being sent off for two “soft” yellows.
But unless my memmory is letting me down they were both small trips but very cynical in that they were done to break up counter attacks. I didn’t have a problem with the cards because they were ‘professional” fouls.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:15pm | Report comment
I just don’t think people should be celebrated for breaking the rules of the game
People asked, would I do the same. The answer is probably yes but I would be embarrass if I became a national hero for it.
Art Sapphire said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:33pm | Report comment
What you fail to see dasilva is the context.
1) Maradona’s Hand of God was against the English.
“For a country that had just been beaten in the Malvinas (Falklands) War, we desperately needed a hero, a cause. Maradona provided it,” Rodrigo Martin, a social economist and professor in Argentina
2) When Cristiano took a dive against Melbourne Victory to win a penalty (the incident which instigated the FFA’s video review) the Adelaide fans loved it. Because it was against the their bitterest rival. They were not complaining, were they? They were celebrating that Victory had been done over.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:40pm | Report comment
Well, I was one of the few Adelaide fans complaining about it. I guess that makes me weird eh
Art Sapphire said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:56pm | Report comment
dasilva – I just think that you have a strong moral code, which I applaud, but you want to see it applied to sport. That is very difficult.
The way I see it – people go to war based on lies, which is why I don’t get to hot and bothered over what humans do on the playing field.
By the way, the Adelaide supporters who celebrated Cristiano’s theatrics last time I checked were “Australians”
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 6:15pm | Report comment
Well when making generalization about culture. There’s always an assumption that it doesn’t mean never or always.
Yeah there were people who celebrated Cristiano’s theatrics but the media coverage in Australia was mostly negative about Cristiano’s dive
I do agree that there are far bigger problems in the world than a bit of playacting in the sporting field. Nevertheless, I still want to see improvements to this game.
Fussball ist unser leben said | July 9th 2010 @ 9:57am | Report comment
dasilva
Unless you can provide hard evidence, your comment that “Some cultures consider cheating an artform” is just a subjective opinion, and reeks of a preconceived bias against certain cultures.
I won’t ask you to identify the cultures that consider cheating an artform but, perhaps, you would care to identify “the squeaky clean cultures” – i.e. which are the cultures always play fair and within the rules?
Please don’t say ‘Straya or I’ll fall off my chair laughing!
In Football, I’ve seen Aussie defenders illegally holding opposition forwards prior to corners being taken’. Whilst I can’t say I’ve ever seen Aussies feigning injury to waste time, I’ve certainly seen Aussie players trying to win penalties by theatrical diving.
I rarely watch cricket, but from news reports I’ve observed Aussie Cricketers cheating by claiming the ball was caught when it was not or claiming the ball didn’t hit the bat when it did.
I’ve seen Aussie Rules players claim they touched the ball before it went through for a goal even though they didn’t, claim they marked the ball when it clearly touched the ground first, claim they are being illegally held/pushed in the back when they aren’t.
If cheating is “a cultural thing”, I contend it’s inherent to the HUMAN CULTURE.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:03pm | Report comment
The art of guile – furbizia
http://www.footballitaliano.co.uk/article.aspx?id=113
My main point of the article (at least when unedited) was that cheating happens in every culture but the way people react to it is different and people have different definition of cheating.
Sharminator said | July 11th 2010 @ 1:35pm | Report comment
I actually agree completely with the different cultural view of cheating that you are talking about.
Im an Australian living in Paraguay … when I first got here I couldnt believe all the diving and that sort of stuff that goes on in South American Soccer … from my Aussie perspective it seemed like bad sportsmanship and cheating.
However … culturally .. in South American Football .. if you do something illegal .. and get away with it .. it is seen as clever, a good use of guile, rather than bad sportsmanship, and that the other team should simply cop it sweet.
The best examples, already mentioned, are the hand of god and the Uruguayan who stopped the goal with his hands. Over hera both are seen as clever, winning doing whatever it takes, and using your brain, whereas Aussies would probably see them as cheating.
Barry said | July 9th 2010 @ 10:53am | Report comment
“Due to Australia’s uniqueness in having 4 football codes, pieces like dasilva’s only add fuel to the fire for people who either do not like the game of football or don’t wish to develop a deeper understanding of the game.”
It surprises me that this really seems to be the typical response from a lot of football fans. If you don’t like diving, simulation and cheating then you don’t understand or don’t like the game.
Why does a fan ‘not understand’ football if they don’t enjoy seeing a world class player fling themselves to the turf at the slightest contact in the hope of conning the referee ? This act of cheating / gamesmanship / whatever has nothing to do with the actual game itself.
Why does a fan ‘not like’ football if they were disgusted at the way Suarez celebrated Cyan missing the penalty and his comments after the game ? If they were disappointed for Ghana and believe they wuz robbed. It has nothing to do with a deeper understanding of the game.
Some football fans need to accept that people who understand and love football as much as they do are appalled by these types of incidents and it actually detracts from our enjoyment of the game. It doesn’t mean we don’t understand or like the game, it’s just that we respect concepts of fair play, sportsmanship and integrity as well as beautiful football.
Whenever anyone dares suggest that something change to improve the game they get howled down that they don’t understand the game.
Is there a football fan out there who thinks that diving actually adds to the spectacle of the game ?
If there is I would suggest that it is actually you that doesn’t understand the game.
If not then why does anyone who suggests change get shot down immediately…?
Finally, I understand where people are coming from when they say that Suarez didn’t cheat, he played the odds, broke the rules, got caught and paid the price. I don’t agree but I accept the point of view.
I don’t think the issue here is with Suarez and Uruguay’s penalty / punishment it’s that Ghana copped the rough end of the pineapple as they say. Without Suarez’s intervention Ghana 100% score and go through to the next round, with his intervention they are given a say 70/30 chance at a goal (don’t want to debate the likelihood of scoring from the spot ! hahaha). 100% goal to 70% goal chance because an opponent cheated / broke the rules / whatever – not a fair trade off from a Ghanaian point of view.
Suarez should not be ‘hung in the middle of the country’ he played the odds and got away with it – good luck to him. From a standpoint of purely playing the odds then every player should do what Suarez did – which isn’t a good look for the game. What should happen now though is the rules should be changed to ensure that no other team cops the unfair treatment that Ghana did.
Surely no one thinks that Ghana got a fair result ?
Art Sapphire said | July 9th 2010 @ 11:06am | Report comment
Barry – as Albert Camus famously said – “All that I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football”
This is why so many people love football. Its the human condition writ large on the playing field.
Some people can’t handle this. I suggest they watch something else.
Dominic Herzberg said | July 9th 2010 @ 11:07am | Report comment
I understand your point of view, my problem with changing the rules is, that since now nobody made a decent suggestion on how the rules should be changed. You easily can demand a change but without any better ideas it will be difficult. Also nobody respond to the argumentation against certain changes. I’m not saying that there can’t be improvements, but the ideas I heard so far wouldn’t bring the game any further.
AndyRoo said | July 9th 2010 @ 11:07am | Report comment
Well said Barry.
I wasn’t that bothered by the ghana result but I don’t see anything wrong with discussing it or suggestions of improvements.
Dasilva has been shot down any time he mentions video refs but it’s not like 3 fans agreeing with him would change anything overnight. It would obviously be trialed in a league or two first and would live or die on it’s merits.
If anyone suggests they don’t like penalty shoot outs their called anti football but maybe their just anti shootout which is hardly representative of the regular 90 minutes of action. That said enjoying penalty shoot outs is a fine position too.
Rugby fans, cricket cans, AFL fans… they all have some elements about their game they dont like, doesn’t mean their not fans.
Though I understand not giving much credence to people who are obviously not football fans and just venting.
Sharminator said | July 11th 2010 @ 1:39pm | Report comment
“Surely no one thinks that Ghana got a fair result ?”
A Uruguayan stopped a goal with his hands, which is against the rules, and, as the rules state he should done, he got a red card.
A Ghanian player could have done the same at any other moment of the game.
I dont know where fairness comes into it. Are you suggesting the no goal should be overturned? That isnt in the rules of soccer.
Uruguay won … end of story. Its sport .. and sometimes sport isnt fair.
Barry said | July 9th 2010 @ 11:30am | Report comment
Dominic – I’ll stay away from video during games to get decisions like offside, goals, etc right – that’s been done to death over the past couple of days and clearly there will never be agreement.
But in terms of the Suarez incident the rule could be changed so that if an act of foul play denies a team a scoring opportunity (ie a foul in the box) then the attacking team receives a penalty shot. If an act of foul play denies a team a goal (ie Suarez) then the goal is awarded. I don’t think that changes the fabric or flow of the game at all and would avoid Suarezgate (hahaha) happening again – surely only a good thing.
In terms of diving the solution is simple and the rules already in place. A crack down from on field officials regarding simulation backed up by video review after the game and retrospective cards for divers. This would reduce the practice pretty quickly, doesn’t interrupt the flow of the game and doesn’t require any rule changes – in fact only encourages stricter adherence to the current laws.
Midfielder said | July 9th 2010 @ 1:44pm | Report comment
Das
There is no real answer except for rule changes… sometimes I think simple rules that both punish and reward work…
An idea I have read a few times and like is this… if a player goes down in the box and calls for a penalty … a penalty must be given…The incident would be referred to the 4 official to watch the replay… either call a dive resulting to a penalty to the defending team and a card or award the penalty …. It is so simple dive and you give a penalty away and get a card… IMO would stop diving in the box over night.
A goal devise on whether a goal is scored in 2010 and beyond can be and should be made…
General play is more difficult … however refs could identify calls they made which they are not totally sure … these could be referred to a review to apply sanctions of some kind if a dive occurred…
I guess the issue is where and who…
OK major tournaments … WC, Asian Cup, Confs Cup etc…
Top division in major leagues … nominate the top say 50 leagues say EPL, J-League, A-League …
Others if they could afford it could follow…. if they could afford and every match has coverage…
Das your point about some teams dive more than others …. very correct the Middle Eastern and some Asian teams go down faster than hooker at the cross…. so do some of the South Americans teams & some European teams…
My guess is FIFA need to be firm but a lot of the power base of FIFA is in nations that traditionally dive.
So my take is fixing everything is hard … maybe the dive in the box rule and the goal mouth devise is a start…
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 6:41pm | Report comment
Agree Midfielder.
Have the 4th official watch all penalties and advise the ref of diving.
It doesn’t seem that hard to stamp out diving inside the box.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:01pm | Report comment
By the way, The Roar changed the titled and heavily edited this article. This article wasn’t exclusively about how cultures consider cheating an artform. It’s about why Football is being singled out for cheating in Australia while other sports have cheated as well. I wish The Roar would stop editing
This is the unedited article.
Cheating and unsporting behaviour has been a scourge of sport in general since time immemorial. Professional sports are a highly competitive environment with a lot of money and prestige on the line where the athletes are generally judge solely on results. Therefore it isn’t surprising to see sportsman who pushed the limits of the law or even break the law to get an advantage whether it is to commit handball, claim a catch that bounce first, using blood capsules to feign injuries, using performance enhancing drugs, salary cap rorts, tanking or even bribing the referee.
So no sport is truly innocent in terms of cheating (which I define as deliberately breaking the rules). However, recently Football is getting a lot of flak for the amount of cheating in this World Cup. Although fans of Football may point out that cheating is hardly unique to this sport and may starts debates whether cheating is more common in other sports, this generally missed the point on why people find the cheating in Football so frustrating. Although I do suspect without any statistical evidence to back up my suspicion that cheating is more common in Football compared to other sport, this is rather irrelevant as the reason why people are frustrated is not the amount of cheating in Football but the reaction to cheating during the game.
Firstly, Football is a world game that represents 208 nations and therefore 208 different cultures. There isn’t a consensus in what is considered cheating amongst all the nations. Some cultures don’t view breaking the rules of the game as cheating. They will claim that it is not against the rules to handball to prevent a goal. It is only against the rules to handball to prevent a goal and then keeps on playing unpunished and hence Suarez did not cheat. Therefore that type of handball is considered a legitimate tactical option to be used at certain parts of the game by some cultures.
Some cultures also see deceiving referees as a glorified way of sticking it up to authority which therefore justify injury feigns and diving. They may think that deceiving referees to be an art form of its own. The Italians call it furbizia, the art of guile. Players who excel at deceiving referees, provoking opponents for a red card are sometimes celebrated for their intelligence, cleverness and street smart attitude. Players who lack the guile are considered as seriously as players who lack the talent. There are Football schools in the world that teaches players to dive.
The result of this is that players can be considered a national hero for deliberately breaking the rules of the game. Suarez was considered a hero for Uruguay and Maradona’s hand of god goal added to his legacy amongst the Argentina people. As some countries believe that football is a game that tests both the guile and the skills of the player, it’s very difficult for FIFA to create disincentives for cheating in this game.
Although the Australian public are not foreign to the idea of cheating and the Australian are certainly not innocent of cheating, the idea of being celebrated for cheating is certainly unusual. It’s quite reasonable for the Australian public to get disgusted by the idea that people who deliberately break the rules of the game get celebrated as heroes and this is an example of the culture clash that exist in football. This is responsible for the amount of scepticism they have for the game.
Sports that exist in a more monoculture or a more narrow culture environment, there is a consensus on what is cheating and therefore when players do cheat they are generally condemn for it and not celebrate for it. In Cricket, when the players ball tamper or claim a catch when it didn’t happen, all nations who are member of ICC will all agree that is cheating. The only real grey area in Cricket is the issues of sledging and what constitute as “Using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting,” as it is very dependent on cultural values. The controversy during the Indian tour to Australia and the controversy of who was at fault demonstrate the type of cultural clash that appears more regularly and at a larger scale in Football.
The second problem is that there is a lack of disincentive for cheating. In most sports, if players get caught on video evidence of cheating, they will get punished. Unfortunately Football has a very anti-video technology stance not just for in game used but for post game used as well as there is no post match video review to watch over the game and suspend players for unsporting activity. When Kaka sends off wasn’t rescinded and Keite playacting was left unpunished, it left a huge blow to the credibility of the game as the cheating goes unpunished. It gives the game a message that cheating works and that if you are clever enough to avoid detection from referee then you will get away with it. Therefore this has created a cheating culture in football and if you don’t conform to it, you put your team into a supreme disadvantage.
So my point is what makes Football be singled out for cheating isn’t necessarily the cheating itself but the response to it. When players get celebrated for breaking the rules of the game and when players who do cheat get away with it, it damages the credibility of the game to the Australian public.
If FIFA are serious about expanding the game and making the game more mainstream in countries like USA and Australia or if they want to prevent Football fans from becoming disenchanted with the game then it needs FIFA to adopt a more realist view to cheating and not rely on players to voluntary play in the spirit of the game.
The FIFA Fair Play code states “Winning is without value if victory has been achieved unfairly or dishonestly.” Due to FIFA’s negligence, this attitude is now obsolete in the professional game as winning becomes everything and the team that gallantly lose becomes forgotten. The only way for FIFA to deal with this issue is to create enough disincentives to cheating that teams who do not break the rules have the greatest chance of winning. They need to have a seriously look at rule changes such as stop clock to prevent time wasting, introduction of a penalty goal to prevent deliberate handballs, post match video reviews to punish cheaters that weren’t detected by on field referees and in-game video reviews of all penalties to detect diving.
Countries with different cultural belief are not going to give up the game simply because FIFA starts to enforce the rules of the game more strictly and FIFA has more to gain in becoming more strict in enforcing the rules. Countries that have a winning at all cost mentality will adjust their game to any rule changes to maximise their chance of winning and that may mean they start playing within the rules more often. Those countries who promote the art of guile has to be reminded that these values are contrary to the values of Fair Play which is the official values that FIFA of which they are a member of. In the end those countries have the responsibility to adopt the values of Fair Play and not FIFA changing their values to suit those countries.
Aka said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:59pm | Report comment
Dasilva,
perhaps you and other posters of articles should immediately post the unedited version, complete with you’re desired headline as the first response to the thread.
It’s good to be able to read the original. An debate the true article.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
yeah, unfortunately real life means that I couldn’t do that until much later in the day.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 6:22pm | Report comment
My original head lines is supposed to be
“The reason why Football is being singled out for unfair play”
Also notice that at no point in the article did I mention “some cultures consider cheating an artform”. I wrote that they may think that deceiving referees to be an art form of its own as they have different definition of cheating.
Art Sapphire said | July 9th 2010 @ 3:16pm | Report comment
dasilva – maybe, you should request The Roar to send their edited version to you before they publish it.
If you are not happy with it then don’t ask them to publish it.
Don’t know if it will work. I haven’t written a piece in ages, but I wouldn’t be happy if I was taken out of context.
dasilva said | July 9th 2010 @ 6:39pm | Report comment
yeah, I just sent an email to The Roar with this request. It will be interesting to see what their response would be.
ItsCalledFootball said | July 9th 2010 @ 6:31pm | Report comment
Cheating is part of all sports and cultures even USA and NFL where they have 10 umpires and 20 slow motion cameras – they still have penalties and yellow flags.
The rules of football are fine – you just need to police them.
The referees have done exceptionally well in this world cup in policing the rules and I think it has been one of the cleanest and fairest world cups I have ever seen.
Two deserving and excellent teams have made it to the final on their merits – no cheating, no controversial decisions.
dasilva said | July 10th 2010 @ 1:39am | Report comment
My main point of my article (at least unedited)
Is that the difference with football and other sports is the way people react to people breaking rules
For one, there is no consensus on what is cheating in football and the policing of the rules is very lax.