What is Cheating...?

Christiano R0naldo is widely villified throughout the land for his various attempts to gain an advantage through unsporting behaviour. Or cheating to you and me. Now, this isn't a dig at Ronaldo, who is an excellent player and has been absolutely fantastic for my football team (as anyone who reads my other Blog will know) it is an attempt to try to put a few things in perspective.

Ronaldo dives. I don't think there is any argument about that. So do a lot of other players (and I include the english players in that as well, because I'm not going to fall into the trap of trying to blame it all on those pesky foreigners!). Everybody in the world of football knows that diving to get yourself a free-kick is cheating.

But what about the other types of cheating that don't seem to be as demonised by football fans around the country? How about the players who try to claim a throw-in that they know not to be there's? I think every player on a professional football pitch has done that at some point in their careers. Are they cheats? Well, technically yes. Attempting to influence the decision of the referee to give a decision in your favour. But it doesn't really have the headline value of dodgy free-kicks and penalties, does it?

One example (and it was this that set me thinking) comes from Saturdays game, Liverpool vs Middlesbrough. Tuncay Sanli scored a goal with his hand. Now, the referee spotted this and disallowed the goal. All well and good, but nobody seems to have decided to call Tuncay a cheat. Even if it wasn't delibrate, he must have known that it had hit his hand, but he still tried to convince the officials that he hadn't. Isn't trying to claim a goal by deception worse than Ronaldo's falling over? But nobody seems to mention that, do they?