Saturday, July 03, 2010

Loopholes


So here's Suarez playing goalie when he's not allowed to, which led to a last-second penalty for Ghana against Uruguay last night. But since Gyan missed the penalty, the match went to a penalty shootout, which Uruguay won.

Arguably, then, Uruguay was rewarded for Suarez's cheating. That's one way to look at it, but really it's a loophole that a player can exploit: stop a certain goal, get sent off, and hope the opponent misses the penalty. (They later showed Suarez's reaction from the tunnel when Gyan missed the penalty.)

And loopholes are inevitable: every system of rules has loopholes that people can exploit, and all attempts to close the loopholes lead to the creation of further loopholes.

3 comments:

Alex said...

Uruguay didn't just profit. The red card means they're down one player for the next game, so they didn't win without paying a price

Unknown said...

BUT they won! Wrongfully!

swiss said...

indeed. what the video doesn't show, not least cos fifa have blocked it, is the 'foul' which caused the free kick in the first place. a free kick!? not in a thousand years.