Suárez’s ‘hand of God’ save raises ethical issues

Luis Suárez’s so-called ‘hand of God’ save has once again brought into public discourse the extent to which competitive and highly commercialised sport – with its emphasis on winning at all costs – can be consistent with the principles of fairness, the ideal of sportsmen and sportswomen as positive role-models and the goal of using sports to promote values and ethics that build society. Though the official mantra of the football world-body, FIFA is ‘fair-play’ and football has been dubbed ‘the beautiful game’, several on and off the pitch antics and shenanigans has led to some critics referring to soccer as ‘a gentlemen’s sport played by rogues’. In a world in which lack of ethics and values and decline of decent etiquette ravage all spheres of life, a game such as football which puts emphasis on self-discipline, team-spirit, sportsmanship and fairness could play a critical role with regard to the promotion of a society based on sound values.

The popularity and mass appeal of football and the iconic status of some of the footballers make it much positioned to play this critical role of entrenching positive societal values. One way by which the game can play a role in this is to make an honourable and sound moral character to be one of the benchmarks of a great footballer rather than attributing greatness only to guts and muscles. But is it possible to do this while at the same time promoting the notion that a goal by any means is laudable, as long as one is cunning or fortunate enough not to get a booking? What if the ‘any means’ becomes an undetected physical attack which might go to the extent of causing an injury that jeopardises the health and football career of a fellow footballer?

Just as Diego Maradona exclaimed that his goal against England on 22 June 1986 was scored with ‘a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God’, Suárez boasted: ‘I was sent off but in the end it was worth it. I did what I had to do.’ His coach, Oscar Tabarez also came to his defence: ‘The player reacted instinctively and was thrown out of the match.’ It is one thing to instinctively, deliberately commit a foul or break the rules in an impulsive move to score or save a goal, and another matter altogether to feel good and boast about it or justify it. Human decency requires that even if at the instinctive and impulsive level you did something underhand to win in a sports game you should at least show some remorse rather than justify and celebrate the fact that you deliberately flouted the roles in a game that is grounded on the notion of fair play.

Confessing about his hand of evil goal Maradona later said, ‘I was waiting for my team mates to embrace me, and no one came … I told them, “Come hug me, or the referee isn't going to allow it”. In other words, his fellow players saw that he scored the goal with a hand and did not celebrate the goal, and he invited them to join in the deceit by celebrating with him what their eyes and conscience told them was not a legitimate goal. The message that our children who adore and worship footballers and other sports personalities get out of this is not only that the wrong means justifies the ends but also that it is cool to support the use of underhand methods by your colleagues, as long as the whole team benefit from it.

If this ‘winning at all cost’ and ‘end justifies the means’ logic and culture is exported to other areas of our lives – politics, sports, the arts, business etc – then we will be breeding the nation of shrewd, unscrupulous, charlatan and corrupt politicians, sportsmen, artists and businessmen; a society in which lying, vote-rigging, plagiarism, bribery and nepotism are the norm rather than an aberration. In fact we are already living in that society. This situation promises to be uglier if a senior person such as a coach is going to justify such a behaviour and practice from his players. Why do we bother to punish young boys who provide false ages to play in certain leagues or sportsmen and sportswomen who use steroids and various performance-enhancing drugs if we have already had public endorsement of a win at all cost, by any means, at whatever expense? As FIFA spokesperson Pekka Odriozola promises that the FIFA disciplinary committee will look into the incident and make a decision, it would seem that harmonising the ethos of competition, commercial gain, prestige and status-seeking with that of fairness, fellowship and honesty in commercial sport will remain a weighty challenge.

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* Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a cultural worker and social critic.
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