The general idea behind sports is athleticism. In essence, it’s the modern-day duels between the knights of old times. Fight hard for the victory, yes, but be chivalrous and fair at the same time. Unfortunately, as it all comes down to money, sponsors and investments, this world has been steadily observing a worrisome rise in acts of true violence derived from a mindset that says «victory at all costs». At the same time, we have more and more incidents that come out of players being incapable of controlling their anger. It is not a surprise or a joke that all of the top Asian and European bookmakers always include markets where people can place bets on how many punishments there will be in a match for these reasons.
Egos, money and the dilution of principles. The reasons behind the violent fouls
The header image for this article comes from a sport where violence should be expected: rugby. However, even under this premise, some rules supposedly exist to protect the safety of the players. The same stands true for all sports. Especially the ones that include bodily contact which is always an accident waiting to happen. Even more so because of the insistence of producing stronger and faster bodies during training.
Had it been the result of accidents, there wouldn’t be much reason to discuss the issue. However, nowadays, violent fouls are most of the time quite intentional. Either because the perpetrators refuse to concede due to their egos, or as a result of loss of sponsorships and therefore loss of income for the players, or because all training is now focused on being ruthless, cynical, and most of all, efficient, during a match. It is a fact that most of what we now call acts of violence happen because all trainers and managers insist on what they call the «follow through». Make sure that your opponent does not pass.
It is also a matter of punishment
For the foul that he committed and is shown in the image on the left, Ivan Horvat has been banned from participating in any handball matches for 26 months. For some people, this is not enough. In their opinion, he should have been banned for life. And that, only because there is a chance that the hand that we see directed against the neck of the opponent may not have been intentional. In our opinion, this is doubtful at best.
To mind comes the incident of Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford severely injuring Virgil Van Dijk. So severely that the Dutch could not play for almost a full season. The infuriating part of it is that the goalkeeper wasn’t even punished for this action. There was no red card or sanction after the fact.
Who can forget Harald Schumacher hitting Patrick Battiston and leaving him unconscious on the ground in 1982? Again, no red card or any sort of punishment was implemented for the violent act.
While, lately, there is a greater attention to such incidents and, through the implementation of VAR many such incidents have been dully sanctioned, it remains a matter of controversy whether the punishments are adequate enough to stop them from happening.
Complete disregard and disrespect of «fellow players»
It is useless to comment on who the perpetrators are in the image above. What is useful to discuss is that they both show a complete lack of concern for the safety and well-being of a fellow footballer. The useful thing to discuss is that the ball itself is not even in the image. What are they going for then? We should discuss the fact that after the incident, both players claimed that they did nothing. What is useful to discuss is that both players kept playing football afterwards. Thankfully, the victim did not suffer any injury. Probably just a lucky happenstance in this case.
Unfortunately, this was not the outcome of the «elbow» hit on the right. Which brings another issue up for debate. This image is low on resolution and not clear enough because it has been disallowed due to the latest decisions to ban such images from the internet. So, it had to be taken from an old VHS video. In our opinion it should never be taken down. People should always remember such violence.
Again, there was no punishment for the perpetrator. In fact, he went on to a very successful career. Which should have never happened.
Violent fouls: not just sanctions from athletic ruling bodies
If incidents like the ones we are describing, happen in other areas of life, it is more than likely, that the perpetrators would face criminal charges. It is also more than likely that they would face serious jail time, apart from fines and financial compensations. Which brings again the question of the authority of the various ruling bodies.
It is well-established that FIFA and UEFA enforce rules of self-government that do not allow for other authorities to interfere. If any country dares to implement local laws, they are immediately banished from the competitions that these two oversee. Which begs the question… Should someone get killed before they realize that criminal intent is not in their jurisdiction?
Should the penalties be harder?
It looks like the opinion that athletes committing such acts should be penalized harder seems to be getting more and more supporters. Penalties should include bans for life, higher fines, and even incarceration. Unfortunately, it also looks like such action is far in the future due to the financial interests involved. In the meantime, people will keep opening accounts at the best betting software, will keep looking for markets concerning yellow and red cards, and will keep placing bets on them.
