Nail the sin rather than vilify the sinner
Luis Suarez’ handball goal against Mansfield in the FA Cup has once more seen the Liverpool striker cast in a villainous role, as well as reminding us that it’s not the first time he has used strong arm tactics to perpetrate a sporting injustice.
Indeed, with all due respect to Mansfield’s plucky endeavours as would-be third round giant-killers, the impact of the Uruguayan’s most infamous use of hands had altogether more devastating consequences, denying Ghana a deserved place in the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
You’ll recall the circumstances: Uruguay and Ghana were locked at 1-1 in the dying seconds of extra-time in the quarter-finals, when Suarez deliberately used his hands to prevent a goal-bound header from Dominic Adiyiah crossing the line and putting the Ghanaians through to the last four.
Suarez duly paid the penalty but Uruguay didn’t, the striker earning a red card but still able to celebrate on the touchline when the South Americans triumphed in the subsequent spot-kick shoot-out.
It was scant consolation for the luckless and understandably outraged Ghanaians that, under existing football law, everything that could have been done to right the wrong was seen to be done, with Suarez duly ruled out of the subsequent semi-final which Uruguay lost 3-2 to the Netherlands.
Still, the player remained unrepentant, mischievously hailing his life-saving intervention at the death against Ghana as “the save of the tournament”, a provocative boast which did little to soften the chorus of disapproval which not only dogged Suarez throughout his appearance in the third-place play-off but which — thanks to a succession of subsequent infractions — has persisted through to the present day.
Yet, I would have more than a little sympathy for the devil on this occasion, even if Suarez’ always irritating habit of kissing his own wrist when he scores can only have rubbed more salt in Mansfield’s wounds.
The fact is that the striker’s reaction was instinctive, the hand to ball movement taking little more than a split-second, and I’m pretty sure that there can have been few in the ground more surprised than he was that the officials failed to spot such a blatant infringement.
To that extent, the incident bears comparison with Thierry Henry’s infamous ‘Hand Of Gaul’ assist against Ireland in the 2010 World Cup play-off in Paris.
As in Henry’s case, Suarez was quickly labelled a cheat, with match commentator Jon Champion the first out of the blocks on Sunday to express his disdain. But what was the player supposed to do? Own up to the offence and alert the officials to something they’d missed? Miroslav Klose did just that when he handled the ball in the act of scoring for Lazio against Napoli last season, the goal then being disallowed by the referee and the German striker being hailed as a wonderful example to the kids.
Which is nice, but there wouldn’t be enough halos in heaven if every player owned up to every transgression in football.
And, for that matter, if blatant handball is “cheating”, then so is every other foul in the game, from deliberately tripping an opponent to holding down a striker’s jersey in the box.
No, the solution, of course, is not to vilify the sinner but rather to nail the sin.
The exceptional circumstances of Suarez’ handball against Ghana in the 2010 World were such that, for the first time in my life, I began to seriously consider the case for a football equivalent of rugby’s penalty try.
Again, no offence meant to Mansfield, but Sunday’s drama at Field Mill was a much more run of the mill affair.
The only pity and the real shame is that football has been so slow to recognise that the perfect solution — video replay to help the ref — is just as obvious as the foul it would have instantly detected.
