Uruguay exploits touch-piece move; Karma finally found

So the debate continues to rage over Uruguay’s deliberate handball on the goal line to snatch a remarkable, controversial and unexpected victory against Ghana.  News forums and blogs have shown quite a split consensus over whether such a foul brands the culprit, Luis Suarez, an unsportsmanlike villan, or a national hero.  Even former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has weighed in, calling Ghana the true winners of the match.

Personally, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.  It seems simply logical that in such circumstances, when a goal would have surely been scored, a penalty goal should be awarded.  Rugby has the penalty try; in tennis, a successful challenge to a call wins the point if the umpire declares it would have been so.  And it’s not as if they don’t have the video technology to do it; heck, if the video ref had been introduced, perhaps Englishman Frank Lampard’s incorrectly disallowed goal would have boosted England to, well, a 4-2 loss instead.

In chess, of course, we have it easy.  If you touch a piece, you have to move it.  If you make an illegal move, the players go back to when the move was made, thus taking the game back to ‘what would have happened’.  Not that our sport isn’t without its controversy as well, of course: our cheating scandals have to be much more imaginative, as the infamous ‘Toiletgate’ episode demonstrates.

Well, at least justice was served to some extent, with Uruguay going down to the fancied Oranje of the Netherlands in the semi-finals.  Karma?  In South Africa?

Ah, so that’s where she got to!