Paying an unjust Penalty

By: dan_c | July 25th, 2011

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While this doesn’t specifically relate to Valencia, it is an issue that has and will affect all teams playing the beautiful game at some point or other. Watching the highlights reel of the Copa America quarter finals inspired this piece, as it reminded me of one of my greatest hates in modern football, after the corruption and hypocrisy of Fifa, and the role of money and the media as an all-too-powerful force.

I am of course referring to penalties.

More specifically penalty kicks to decide games in which sides cannot be separated after regulation or even extra allotted time.

The concept for me is a stupid and unjust one, not nearly on a par with Apartheid and the Holocaust, but certainly more so than the TV “reality” show Paris Hilton’s BFF (yes, that actually sells). Somewhere on a par with Disney Channel systematically destroying the joy of my childhood with the classics of Disney then. Damn you Hannah.

For me the penalty kick system is only effective in that it “decides” the outcome of matches fairly. Other than that it is quite simply unjust and illogical.

The problem firstly is that the ability of at least 5 players in a team to take penalties in no way relates to which team is better, who played a better match, or who deserves to win. Also, just because one can take penalties doesn’t mean he is a good footballer. Barcelona could lose a match on penalties, yet they are undisputably the best team in the world. They didn’t lose the game to get to penalties, they drew. They proved themselves in this hypothetical scenario to be at least on a par with the opposition, and yet now becuase of penalties they are the “losers”. Um…

In the same way football tricksters can do as many “round the worlds” as you like, but many of them aren’t the best football players. We may as well have a hot-dog eating competition to decide who wins games if we are going to take this route because, just like penalties, the ability to eat hot-dogs in no way reflects the ability of a person to play football.

Penalty kicks naturally also change the chances of a team to win games. It simply means that football matches are not given to the team who plays better football. I firmly believe that given enough time or on a given matchday, the best team will win. Simple as that.

But that is the problem. Time.

Unlike the old days the schedules are now so busy that there is simply no time for replays (certainly for me the most logical way of deciding who is better, the whole POINT of a football game). We need an exciting alternative to the lottery of penalties that doesn’t take too long. Many ideas have been mooted, such as playing until someone scores but removing a player every 10 minutes so that the game becomes more open. But then the problem is still the same, the parameters of the game are changed. The best standard football team may not win. The odds change.

Uruguay were just crowned Copa America champions. They are reportedly the best team in South America. This can be shown in that they beat Paraguay, who beat teams who Uruguay didn’t play (Brazil, Peru etc) who in turn beat the rest. So understandably if Uruguay beat all of their opposition then they also proved themselves to be better than the teams who lost to Paraguay, Venezuela, Argentina etc.

But they didn’t. They beat Argentina on penalties. They could only draw. Argentina didn’t lose the football match. They didn’t show themselves to be worse than the “single best team at the tournament”. Argentina apparently failed at the Copa because of penalties. But they aren’t worse than Uruguay. Same with the teams Paraguay failed to proved they were better than. They could have easily been in the final. They could have beaten Paraguay given the chance and proved their superiority. But no, Paraguay got to the final. On a system less fair than a coin flick.

I think a coin flick would be better. At least the odds would be even.

And on the issue of Uruguay, I am reminded of another penalty, this time during the match. We know which I am referring to, Ghana in the quarter finals of the SA World Cup and Luis Suarez’s handball. He prevented an undeniably 100% certain goal. Sure he was justifiably sent off, but the result was a penalty.

This is the problem with that situation. Because of having to take a penalty the odds were lessened of a goal. Surely an automatic penalty goal should have been awarded, like the penalty try in rugby, that is awarded when dead-certain tries are prevented through rule-breaking? Ghana eventually were eliminated in that game, and yet didn’t lose. They weren’t the lesser side. The scoreline shows this.

There is no fairness under this system.

On the other hand, penalties in games often vastly increase the chances of a goal. Often teams are awarded penalties for overly aggressive defending when a player is being shepherded out of the box or towards the touchline, he has his back to goal and has no angle or way of shooting. Technically, his chances of scoring a goal are 0% right, or there about? And yet suddenly a penalty is awarded and he gets an open shot at the keeper unchallenged and unpressurised. His chances of scoring are probably more around 70 to 90 % now.

Um…fairness?

I’m not suggesting that I have an alternative, or that the penalty goal should replace the in-game penalty (except in 100% definite goal prevention, that I would condone), but %^&* if Blatter could just do one thing good for the game instead of finding corruption in some of his FIFA cronies when it suits him politically (we know that every one is up to their ears in corruption anyway), could he please institute video technology and do something about the unfairness and injustice that is the penalty kick system in football!

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Paying an unjust Penalty

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