Originally Posted by
Insidetherock
I am not "condoning" anything... to do so, would be to accept that some rule had been broken, and has been repeated ad nauseum already, that it nto the case.
I also know many people would not agree with my stance, but to be quite frank, my stance is the only one which brings clarity to this whole situation, otherwise teams are left in a grey area bemoaning a contravention of the "spirit of the game"
How far does spirit of the game extend ? Every single person here knows of cases where players and teams act the maggot with the spirit of the game, and everyone here has their interpretation of what "spirit of the game" means
It's another one of these crazy interpetative things like excusing dangerous tackling because "its a mans game" or "its a contact sport"
The simple fact of the matter here, is that FIFA themselves recognised this area as a problem within the game, and issued directives to all levels of football in how to deal with it. And, it was a pretty simple directive... play on unless the referee stops the game.
No matter how people feel "sick" after the decision, be they the sinners or the sinned against, the only way of clarifying how the situation should have been dealt with, was by adhering to the rules of the game and the teams should have played on.
Someone asks what I would think if it happened to my club i.e. Cashel Town... I'd have been raging. But raging because the players were stupid enough to let a player walk in and score, not because the player had walked in and scored.
It's a lot easier to stop the goal and make an issue of it afterwards, then let it be scored and then make the issue.
Remember the first rule you were told when under 8 ? Play the whistle.