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Fair Play and the ethics of sports...

Blackmail!

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I don't know is someone heard about this, but yesterday, France's soccer qualified against Ireland, againts the course of the match. Unfortunately, it was Thierry Henry's hand that allowed this wonderful score, even if the referee didn't see it.

May be you remember Argentina and Maradonna, who qualified his own team thanks to a similar event. Well, I do not doubt for a second that should have this happened again with nations like Argentina or Italy, everybody would have been pleased and even festive (because everyone knows that Italy's soccer team are the worst cheaters in the world, that's a well established fact).
But in France, this event is progressively turning into a real tragedy. All the French media are now explaining how unfair this victory was, and how our national team clearly didn't deserve it.

I'm even hearing the possibility that we could replay this match.

France is a very curious nation. Whether in war or in sport, "fair play" has been a very long tradition. Most of the time, it didn't help us a lot, but that's in our culture.

And now, while in theory our team won, it behaves just exactly as it would have lost.
 
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Halla74

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I don't know is someone heard about this, but yesterday, France's soccer qualified against Ireland, againts the course of the match. Unfortunately, it was Thierry Henry's hand that allowed this wonderful score, even if the arbiter didn't see it.

May be you remember Argentina and Maradonna, who qualified his own team thanks to a similar event. Well, I do not doubt for a second that should have this happened again with nations like Argentina or Italy, everybody would have been pleased and even festive (because everyone knows that Italy's soccer team are the worst cheaters in the world, that's a well established fact).
But in France, this event is progressively turning into a real tragedy. All the French media are now explaining how unfair this victory was, and how our national team clearly didn't deserve it.

I'm even hearing the possibility that we could replay this match.

France is a very curious nation. Whether in war or in sport, "fair play" has been a very long tradition. Most of the time, it didn't help us a lot, but that's in our culture.

And now, while in theory our team won, it behaves just exactly as it would have lost.


So Ireland scored on themselves?
Please clarify, I wish to make sure I understand this fully...

NOTE: When I was 8, I played soccer in a German community league. I played center halfback, and went to the backfield to try to stop an unexpected advance from the other team's forwards, I got the ball, and while trying to get to spot open enough to pass, I heard my coach yell "Kick the ball to our goalie, he is close to you!" So, I turned around and gave the ball a teeny-tiny kick to the goalie...who missed it...and let it become a goal for the other team. :BangHead:
 

Halla74

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No Australians allowed in this thread. :ninja:

All Australians in are imprisoned in other countries. That continent is filled with kangaroos, koala bears, and cockatoos. Everyone knows that, Quinlan! :yes:
 
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So Ireland scored on themselves?
Please clarify, I wish to make sure I understand this fully...

Ireland carried the play for most of the match, and France scored to break a 1-1 tie near the very end. Replays showed clearly that the French player directed the ball with his hand, although the referee did not see it. The Irish government is demanding a replay of the game, and while that won't happen, many on the French side sympathize.
 

Halla74

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Ireland carried the play for most of the match, and France scored to break a 1-1 tie near the very end. Replays showed clearly that the French player directed the ball with his hand, although the referee did not see it. The Irish government is demanding a replay of the game, and while that won't happen, many on the French side sympathize.

Hence the refernce to Maradonna and the "Hand of God."
No instant replay clause as in the NFL then, eh?
 

matmos

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I don't know whether a replay is a good course of action. The way football is judged is through the referee and the linesmen; sadly video evidence is not allowed, as with other sports - presumably due to "tradition" (I can't think of any other sport that's filmed from as many angles as football, so the infrastructure is there). The action is described in the Huffington Post as:

The game appeared headed to penalty kicks when Florent Malouda sent a free kick to Henry at the post to the right of goalkeeper Shay Given in the 103rd minute. Henry got between defender Paul McShane and Given, stopped the ball with his left hand, then used his hand again and poked the ball with his outstretched right foot in front of the net.​

"He almost caught it and walked into the net with it," said Robbie Keane, who had put the Irish ahead in the 33rd minute.

Gallas headed the ball into the net from about 1 yard as Irish players raised their hands in protest at Hansson.​

From: Thierry Henry Handball Goal VIDEO: "Le Hand Of God" Goal Puts France Past Ireland

Clearly the problem is in the way the game is reffed. It's very noble of Blackmail! to accept an injustice has been done - fair play - but the same could be said of scores of games played across Europe, all of which cannot be replayed.

The French should enjoy the win; after all, a bit of controversy is part of the game.

But hats of to the French; looks like Henry's been in England too long. ;)

Edit: This bunch don't seem to have the same sporting attitude as our French chums:

BBC News - Egypt recalls Algerian envoy as football row deepens
 

6.4

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Football needs video replays. Football is supposed to be a game of skill, not skill + conning the referee as much as possible. Henry acted a bit of a scumbag really, but so does every footballer from time to time. Some Irish players have come out and said they would have done the same thing given the opportunity, I'm not sure if I could have resisted myself (I'm semi-joking I'm not a cheat).

At the time I was drunk and thought it would still go to penalties when the final whistle went (and I don't remember any of the night after the whistle:doh:).
But in the morning after seeing it on the news, I spent the day quite angry. I was thinking how when they bring the flags out for the opening World Cup ceremony they shouldn't bring out the French flag. Any team playing France in a game should just standstill for 90 minutes and refuse to play them. I felt that noone should speak to the French people in South Africa. I was thinking if I had the choice : that England would lose every match at the World Cup and France were guaranteed not to win the tournament, I would take it. To be honest, I think now (after I've calmed down) if I could make it so that it's impossible for France to win the World Cup, so long as England can't win the World Cup. I'd probably take that.

It's a bit of a shame really, it's a blight on the tournament which is supposed to be a spectacle and a celebration not shady and ultra-competetive. Ireland pretty much deserved to join the party in South Africa even though France are probably the stronger team but oh well that's the way of the world sometimes :coffee:.

But hats of to the French; looks like Henry's been in England too long. ;)

What do you mean by this?
 

LostInNerSpace

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If the team is truly deserving of the title they will win the rematch. The team that wins fairly deserves the prize.
 

nomadic

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ah i wasn't sure what the uproar was about the way theirry reacted

but now that u cleared up the french sympathy for the validitiy of the win, i understand now.
 

SolitaryWalker

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France is a very curious nation. Whether in war or in sport, "fair play" has been a very long tradition. Most of the time, it didn't help us a lot, but that's in our culture....

I'm even hearing the possibility that we could replay this match.



This is a very interesting point. Notably, Arsene Wenger insists that the correct decision in this situation is allowing an official rematch.

Wenger urges France to offer Ireland replay | News Archive | News | Arsenal.com

Well, I do not doubt for a second that should have this happened again with nations like Argentina or Italy, everybody would have been pleased and even festive (because everyone knows that Italy's soccer team are the worst cheaters in the world, that's a well established fact).

I have heard and seen many nasty things about the Italian game; from committing egregious fouls in a very subtle manner and feigning an injury in a time-wasting endeavor to fixing matches. You probably know more about this matter than I do, could you expound upon it please. Is dishonesty a notable feature of the Italian cultural values? If so, what are the likely salient causes of this?




France is a very curious nation. Whether in war or in sport, "fair play" has been a very long tradition. Most of the time, it didn't help us a lot, but that's in our culture..

Is the value of fairness specific to French football or is it a reflection of the French cultural values by and large? If so, what are the salient causes of such values?

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Interesting note: The Italian style of gaming appears significantly different from that of other Western nations (e.g England, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany); it is much more conservative. The games on average are tighter and contain fewer goals, and defense is emphasized over offense and midfield play.

This is a tangent, but it seems to me that the Italian football culture is more reminiscent of the Eastern style than the Western. There is something about the mentality of the Eastern Europeans that the main strategy involves the following, nothing more and nothing less: play defense as tightly as possible and wait for your opponent to make a mistake; when they do, make one successful strike on the counter attack, one is all you need as the game should be too tight for more. If the opponent pushes forward aggressively and spreads their defense too thinly, launch another counter-attack, get a second goal: that should be more than enough to bury the game.

The Westerners on the other hand tend to emphasize intricate strategies of using midfielders and forwards to storm the opponent's goal, even at the expense of being scored on due to insufficient care defending.

Obviously the Western nations tend to be more liberal than the Easterners and offer their citizens more leeway with regard to public ethics and professional responsibilities. I wonder if the fact that their style of playing football is more creative and engaging than that of the Easterners is due to their cultural values. Italy is not liberal comparing by Western Standards and economically deprived too.

The fans of the Italians and the Easterners are on average cruder and more violent than that of the Westerners, I'd bet that this is a result of their economic deprivations also. Seems to me that an illiberal, economically deprived country is more likely to endorse ethical values that discount fairness in favor of a philosophy that holds that the ends justify the means. I'd think so because citizens of such nations are too busy fending for their basic needs to be concerned with such lofty things as morality and fairness. Possibly even because they feel demeaned by their immediate surroundings and feel they have something to prove by winning contests by all means necessary. In short, I would conjecture that whether a nation values honesty in sport depends on whether or not the county has honesty as a distinct cultural value. Whether it does, I think depends on its economic circumstances. Countries of poor economic circumstances tend to be result focused and therefore see honesty as less important than results. Result-focused countries (Eastern European) tend to be more conservative in their game out of fear of making mistakes. The fans are cruder and more violent because they tend to feel that the results of the game have a lot to say about their personal dignity; and besides, in their poor economic circumstances they don't have much else that could bring joy to their lives, so a lot more is riding on those games for them than for the French and the other Westerners.

Just a number of thought experiments, I am quite curious about what you'd have to say regarding the main points of my views.
 

matmos

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Dirty play by one team usually confers some advantage, depending on the subtlety of the players. Many are very adept.

This creates an duel-pronged incentive to reciprocate by the other, fairer team: restoration of "justice" and realigning the odds.

In other words, it has parallels with all arms race scenarios and is in effect a variation of The Tragedy of the Commons.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Dirty play by one team usually confers some advantage, depending on the subtlety of the players. Many are very adept.

This creates an duel-pronged incentive to reciprocate by the other, fairer team: restoration of "justice" and realigning the odds.

In other words, it has parallels with all arms race scenarios and is in effect a variation of The Tragedy of the Commons.

If I understand correctly, when one team starts to play fair, the other team feels compelled to enter the contest of 'fair-play' or make sure that their gaming is not any less fair than that of the other team. Is that correct? I don't find this at all persuasive. As today many teams try to be as fair as possible yet a great deal of their opponents show no ambition to make their game is more fair.
 

matmos

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If I understand correctly, when one team starts to play fair, the other team feels compelled to enter the contest of 'fair-play' or make sure that their gaming is not any less fair than that of the other team. Is that correct? I don't find this at all persuasive. As today many teams try to be as fair as possible yet a great deal of their opponents show no ambition to make their game is more fair.

No, not quite, SW. I don't know whether you've deliberately swapped over what I intended to illustrate some flawed logic?

Anyway, I'll expand. In tightly run competitions, such as the premier football leagues in Europe, playing dirty - cheating - confers an advantage that fair play does not: A dive in the goalmouth is worth a try to a rational agent: a penalty and a certain goal, versus being rumbled and at worse getting a yellow card. This is particularly so in a game where there's not much between 2 teams.

If I understand your description of Italian football - that it is defensive and opportunistic - apart from being loaded with curious stereotypes, actually makes a case for my view.

Perhaps dirty play is not a reflection on Italians players, who appear to cheat more than their northern European counterparts, but simply the equilibrium of this style of play and the weakness inherent in the way it is adjudicated. I'm not a fan of Italian football, but from what I've seen a great deal of the cheating is of the opportunity enhancing kind.

The concept of two teams playing a fair game is great providing no team tries to put an extra sheep in the field, as it were. As soon as someone does then it doesn't make any sense to play a fair game against a team of a similar skill level, but which cheats at every opportunity. It would make a great deal of sense to employ the same tricks.

I'm probably drifting a bit from the France-Ireland match. Apologies to Blackmail!...
 
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