Don't hate the Uruguayan player, hate the FIFA game.

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The Hand of Suárez

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Until FIFA pulls their head out of their 20th century ass into 21st century reality, don't hate the Uruguayan player, hate the FIFA game.

Luis Suárez wanted his country to win desperately enough to risk the gamble of an intentional handball to stop Ghana's otherwise guaranteed game-winning goal. His intention was obvious for the world to see, and referee Olegario Benquerenca rightfully punished him on the spot with a straight red card while awarding Ghana the penalty kick as the final play of extra time to win the game.

To all the so-called sports journalists who have accused Suárez of being a cheater on football's biggest stage, remember this: the importance of winning fairly and honorably at the World Cup exists only to the extent you can bear to define...

1. injury simulations,
2. indefinitely tolerated protesting against the referee, and
3. time-wasting tactics

...to all be just a part of the game.

Since Asamoah Gyan did in fact fail to convert his 12-yard opportunity to win the game, you can conveniently understate the risks Suárez took to do what he did. How embarrassing would Suárez's handball be had Gyan not succumbed to the pressure of the situation and struck his penalty kick into the Uruguay goal instead? Regardless of the result of the penalty kick awarded to Ghana, the handball was so brazenly obvious and intentional, Suárez's and Uruguay's reputation would be fair game for all the world's football fans to criticize.

I argue the handball did not steal Ghana's rightfully earned and executed opportunity to win the game. What Suárez did was play a wild joker card no player in the history of the World Cup has ever pulled out of his sleeve but as always theoretically existed. And that card has always theoretically existed because FIFA naively has never conceived a player at the World Cup would attempt an intentional handball to prevent a game-winning goal against.

Some of you have suggested giving the referee the option of rewarding goals on technicality when goalward-bound shots are illegally stopped (e.g. by intentional handball or other unconventional means). Granted, making the comparison to the goaltending rule in basketball or the empty net situation rule in ice hockey is fitting.

But after the horror of refereeing mistakes at this year's tournament leading up to the Uruguay-Ghana game, perhaps referees should not be given more authority to make goal-scoring related rulings but rather less. FIFA's policy for its referees to make permanently irrevocable rulings on the spot without any technological aids has already proven to be overburdening in too many instances.

You Suárez haters can't have your cake and eat it too. To tolerate any of the three aforementioned categories of poor sportsmanship as reasonable behavior in the spirit of winning at all costs is to tolerate them all: including what you may argue to be too lenient of a punishment that is a straight red card for an intentional handball. (i.e. Not to mention Suárez could not have predicted the disciplinary action FIFA would take beyond the red card from referee Benquerenca.)

The fact that Uruguay's allegedly 'victimized' opponent was Ghana - "The Last of the Africans" - makes your argument quite conveniently more convincing. But what if that team were slightly less of a sentimental favorite such as North Korea? I seriously doubt your level of sympathy would stand in this case.

Let's call a spade a spade and point out that the moniker of "The Beautiful Game" exists only to reinforce the benefits of the game for players playing at the grassroots level (i.e. "The beautiful children playing the beautiful game"). But at the World Cup level, football is a multi-billion dollar month-long marketing bonanza for the world's greatest too-big-to-fail multi-national corporations.

FIFA's firm stance on its policy of burdening its referees with the authority to make on-the-spot decisions that are permanently irrevocable in its history books did not waver in the 1986 after Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal; and it certainly did not waver this year after Frank Lampard's 'non-equalizing' equalizer. Arguably, FIFA is strangely commendable in this consistent adherence to this precedence it set for itself.

In the realm of football or any other realm of reality, cheating cannot happen without the conditions for it to be possible. In Monopoly, one of the players must play a double-agent by also carrying out the role of the banker. On highways, there can never be feasibly sufficient police presence and speed cameras to make speeding a punished offense 100% of the time. On Wall Street, financial institutions are allowed to make simple loans to small businesses by the same token they can exchange credit default swaps with other financial institutions.

I argue World Cup football is every bit as genuine as a reality of life as Monopoly, highway driving, and Wall Street because these five realms are all based on a common foundation of money rather than five distinctly different venues: a grassy pitch, a paper board, a lane of paved asphalt, and a Lower Manhattan business district.

Perhaps in a utopic reality, World Cup football players would be perfectly sportsmanlike and capable of avoiding all handballs, not just intentional ones; and referees would be perfectly accurate in making goal-scoring related rulings without technological aids.

I venture a daring statement declaring present-day South Africa has yet to become such a utopic reality, and as such, I venture a much less daring statement arguing Luis Suárez should be considered to be a Uruguayan patriot first, an unsportsmanlike footballer second.