Cheats must pay penalty

LIKE Howard Beale in Network, he’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more.

I refer to the former Republic of Ireland player and manager Eoin Hand, who rang a few of us in the press the other day to let it be known that he had something he wanted to get off his chest.

Eoin had been watching football on the telly earlier this week, as you do, when something happened on the pitch which so enraged him that he was moved to put pen to paper. Stressing that, in this context, he is wearing neither his FAI nor his RTÉ hat, here is what Eoin has to say: “Over the past few years I have been appalled by the continuous lowering of ethical standards in top-level football in the UK. Having earned my living there in the professional game since 1964, I feel I’ve earned the right to pass strong commentary, and in the process, make an impassioned plea to our young players here in Ireland.

“Last Tuesday the nadir was reached during the England v Hungary match. How low have standards dropped when it appears a player of the status of Steven Gerrard decides he must deceive the referee in order to win? He knew he hadn’t been fouled by the Hungarian defender but still he elected to go down to ‘earn’ the penalty. It really is a sad indictment, and is perhaps symbolic of the culture now prevailing, that that so-called ‘paragon of propriety’ — the BBC — in the guise of expert analysts, Lineker, Hanson, Wright and Dixon, not only endorsed this incident but also, in the case of Wright, actually encouraged it! (I couldn’t help but think of the reaction after Maradona’s ‘hand of God’ incident!)

“Have they become so myopic that they can’t see that hundreds of thousands of kids throughout the world will copy the same antics!

“Thank God for Darren Clarke and Padraig Harrington for their massive contribution to honesty and integrity in their sport. Indeed, Clarke could have won the Irish Open Golf Championship without breaking any rules but knew, morally, it would be wrong to do so in the circumstances that prevailed. His reaction to the situation was a true act of sportsmanship at the highest level of professionalism.

“I’m imploring our football referees, at all grades, to strongly demonstrate that we are not prepared to accept such pathetic standards. I’m aware that the rules do not allow for a direct red card for this act of deception but please, please, issue a yellow and make a statement that our kids will understand.

“Anyway, there is a red card for denying a goal-scoring opportunity — why not a red for the false gain of that same opportunity? FIFA take note!

“To our young players I have a strong message — don’t copy what you saw on Tuesday last. What’s the point in admiring a trophy or medal you’ve won that really only says that you’ve abused sporting standards? Would you like this as a reminder all through your life that you’re a person who is prepared to stoop to any means to win however desperate and degrading that might be?

“I sincerely hope not.” — Eoin Hand.

The first thing to say about all this is that it’s heartening that someone of Eoin Hand’s standing in the game has taken the time and effort to make his anger public in this way, rather than simply reacting by putting his foot through the television screen — though I suspect he might have felt like doing that too on Tuesday night.

And it’s clearly not the Gerrard incident in isolation which finally made him snap, but rather that this was just the latest episode in football’s by now long-running soap opera of ducking and diving.

In a follow-up phone chat with Eoin, I brought up the name of someone from his own playing era, the Manchester City striker Francis Lee, whose reputation for winning dubious penalties with an arms-out, full-length dive only added to the threat his already ample attacking gifts posed to defenders of the day.

Eoin countered that Lee was one of those who was more likely to go down if he felt there was some contact — a lesser crime, he argued, than the modern game’s widespread fraud involving players whose mastery of the dark arts is so complete that, like skilled magicians, they can appear to manufacture a foul out of thin air. And it’s the fact that this so-called simulation is so prevalent nowadays that finally made Gerrard’s dive inspire Eoin’s articulate howl of anguish.

And, really, you can’t argue with much of what he has to say — although, having attended a potentially great Champions’ League final in Paris only to see it disfigured by an early and needless sending off, I’m not inclined to argue too strongly for anything which would increase the number of red cards already being shown. But, yellow, certainly — and it would be an all the more welcome development if officialdom saw clamping down on diving as a priority in terms of cleaning up the game rather than wasting everybody’s time handing out cards for innocent if silly stuff like chest-baring goal celebrations.

But the officials need help. What Eoin Hand clearly saw from his sitting room on Tuesday was a detailed and accurate picture that could — and should — have been available to the referee on the pitch. And the same video technology, if properly employed, would also ensure that good play isn’t penalised, as in the case of so many fine goals wrongly ruled offside for the simple and obvious reason that the human eye can’t possibly hope to process all the elements that go into making such a goal — movement off the ball, timing of the pass, positioning of all relevant personnel — without arriving at a decision bound to be based more on luck than judgment.

As we know from rugby, the techno-eye isn’t infallible, but it does offer a level of reliability and consistency which, if utilised in football, would make for a vast improvement in the fairness with which the game is policed — punishing the guilty, of course, but also rewarding the good.

And maybe, just maybe, if footballers thought the game was fair to them, they might be a bit more inclined to be fair to the game.