Running tirelessly to intercept passes? There's the fighting spirit. A clean sliding tackle? No problem, unless it comes from behind. Shoulder-charging while struggling for position? That may be foul play, but not dangerous to health. But when a player hacks the opponent from behind at full speed or kicks him on the ankle, shin, knee? Breaks his nose or teeth with a skillfully placed elbow?
FIFA and most FAs have made serious efforts to reeducate unruly fans and keep those immune to civilization far away from soccer events. Not only has physical violence been barred from the stadia. Racist chants and banners have also been banned with severe penalties for teams incapable of keeping the stands clean.
That is all fine, but when will FIFA act to remove the thugs from the turf itself? Yes, we mean players who excel at kicking, elbowing and otherwise physically hurting others.
"Hard men" have traditionally been praised by sections of the press, not to mention coaches. Some of these violent characters have been labeled as "cool" and in the worst case portrayed as caricatures, but never threatened with expulsion from the game.
Violent players make a mockery of sportsmanship and take away a significant chunk of spectacle from soccer by intimidating, hurting or downright disabling more talented individuals like Maradona, Van Basten or Ronaldo, all of whom spent a lot of time in rehab due to FIFA's lax regulations regarding protection from harm.
When Andoni Goikoetxea, the Butcher of Bilbao, broke Maradona's ankle with a vicious sliding tackle from behind near the halfway line with Barcelona 3-0 up in 1983, the Spanish FA banned him for a mere eight games, although for such a gruesome act he should have been catapulted out of soccer for good.
The other "greatest player ever", Pele, got kicked out of the 1962 World Cup thanks to Portugal's Morais' surgically accurate double sliding tackle into his already injured leg. Incidentally, Morais was allowed to stay on the field by English referee McCabe.
Werder Bremen's Norbert Siegmann jumped studs up on Arminia's Ewald Lienen and sliced open his thigh muscle. He was only yellow carded, but was subsequently suspended for three games.
The German keeper Harald Schumacher was not punished at all for his knee-and-elbow mauling of Patrick Battiston in the 1982 World Cup in Spain.
Injuries are a part of sport and the participants are aware of the risks, but there must be effective measures to discourage players from putting other players' health in danger and from placing the game's outcome before safety.
If FIFA desires to eliminate the vestiges of gladiator games from the soccer field, it should introduce far harsher sanctions against reckless or bullying play to protect the health of players and promote a free display of skill. Dangerous play should be punished even when not resulting in another player's injury, and if an injury results the punishment should be dealt out according to the severity of the injury and the perceived degree of recklessness and/or intent.
Here is a proposal for a system of sanctions against offending players with a view to eliminating "hard men" from the beautiful game and giving more space to those with skill.
1. A player committing a particularly dangerous tackle which has failed to cause injury through mere luck should be banned for up to three months. In a Deportivo-Manchester United game, Diego Tristan launched such a savage jump-tackle on David Beckham so far from goal that there could have been no alternative interpretation as to the intent of the move. Although Becks came off unscathed, Tristan deserved a three-month vacation and a heavy, six-figure fine.
2. A player causing injury through reckless play, even if not meaning to commit a foul, should be banned from playing for at least half of his victim's recovery period, with a maximum of 12 months.
3. A player causing injury through deliberate commission of a foul should be banned for the whole recovery period of his victim, with a maximum of 24 months. Michel Salgado's ankle breaking tackle from behind on Juninho Paulista in 1998 should have warranted the then Celta Vigo player a good six months ban from football. He did not mean to hurt Juninho? Well, Juninho did not mean to get hurt either.
4. A player causing severe injury with the clear intent of causing harm must be banned for two years to life. This is how Roy Keane should have been dealt with for his deliberate and cynical brutality on Alf-Inge Haaland in 2000. Had he done that in the street, he would have been jailed whether he was captain of Manchester United or not. Why should the soccer pitch provide immunity?
Only when an injury is clearly a consequence of pure bad luck, such as when the player who inflicted the injury took all reasonable precautions, should there be an amnesty from a lengthy suspension.
Some horrifying injuries were not brought about by anybody's ill will or recklessness, such as Coventry's Dave Busst's tragic multiple leg fracture when he was caught between Dennis Irwin and Brian McClair near the Manchester United goal in the April of 1996.
Nor could Ipswich's keeper Richard Wright have been held responsible for the dreadful shin fracture suffered by Luc Nilis when the two collided in September of 2000. Both injured players retired as a result of these particular injuries, but those were accidents, though extremely unfortunate ones.
But if you're a soccer bully, you should be made aware that there will be no place for you on the field.
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