By Simon McCallum

Like many of you I have been watching the World Cup. In the quarter final between Uruguay and Ghana there was a controversial hand ball right at the end of the game. Luis Suarez (Uruguay) committed a foul by using his hands to stop a last minute goal that would have resulted in his team losing. He did this in plain view of the officials and was given the maximum punishment in football, a red card, and Ghana were awarded a penalty. Ghana were unable to score from the penalty spot and the game immediately went into a penalty shoot out which Ghana lost.

Suarez’s actions seem to have polarised opinion. Some call him a hero, others a villain. Several online polls have shown a nearly 50% split on the issue. Why is there such a divide on the committing of a professional foul, something that is relatively common in football?

I believe it is down to the way you view the rules of a game, and society in general. When you break a law you can view the consequence either as a punishment for wrong doing, or merely as a cost for an action. If you consider it un-sportsman like or immoral to break laws, then the actual penalty for breaking the law is irrelevant to your actions. If however you view the punishment merely as a cost, then you can make a rational assessment of a situation and decide that breaking the law is the “best” action.

Suarez made the rational decision that the maximum potential cost for the action of handball was lower than the benefit. Therefore, many people see him as a hero who sacrificed himself for the team’s good, making the best decision. This is what the term “professional foul” is used for. Given the idea that the punishment for breaking the law is merely a cost, the professional player weighs that cost against benefit, and thus fouls players, dives, uses their hands, and generally treats the laws as something that can be used to their advantage.

In a society where breaking the rules is frowned upon, the punishment does not need to be high as society will inflict a much harsher punishment by shunning the offender. However most countries do not live up to this high moral standard. Therefore consequences have to be such that no rational person would choose to break the law. If a parking ticket cost 200 kr and an hour in a parking building cost 500 kr, it would be smarter just to park illegally.

If FIFA desires to have games where playesr do not blatantly cheat, the punishment for breaking the laws must be such that it is stupid to do so. Penalty goals would allow the referee to award a goal if there was an infringement that prevented a certain goal from being scored. This, combined with a red card, would make the goal line handball an illigical action. To remove diving there needs to be a citing commission that reviews games and has the power to ban players, remove incorrect cards, and potentially remove points from teams, or in extreme cases, overturn results. By increasing the potential cost for breaking the law you make the cheaters equation harder to calculate.

So how does all of this relate to research? Part of my research is game design, which is about designing the rules that define what a game is. We have the advantage that we are defining the world in which the game occurs, and so can control some forms of cheating. However many sports games allow the player to choose to commit fouls, partly to more accurately simulate real games, but also to add a strategic element related to the chance of being called for committing a foul. Thus cheating has become just another part of the game.

The divide in public opinion clearly shows that there are fairly even numbers of people who see punishment merely as a cost, and those who see the rules as representing a desired level of ethical behaviour. There are many dangers in letting society slip into a ‘punishment is merely a cost’ mentality, where ethics are discarded in favour of capitalist value judgements. If the fine for dumping poison into a river is 100.000 kr but the company saves 200.000 kr what should they do?