The well-known phrase, "We wuz robbed!" originated in 1932 with Max Schmeling's coach, Joe Jacobs, in response to the boxing judges awarding the match to Jack Sharkey when everyone thought Schmeling had clearly won.
It has become the cry at the end of so many sporting contests. No matter how well or how valiantly a team plays, their fate, as often as not, is in the hands of an incompetent referee or umpire.
This morning we saw the Italians given a ridiculous penalty shot some eight seconds before time. With the match fixing scandals now rocking Italy and the corruption that rules all business, you have to wonder if the presiding referee wasn't bribed.
Yeah, OK, I'm not saying he was, but given the obscene salaries of soccer players these days, slipping a referee a million bucks to make sure a team goes through is not wild speculation. It is most certainly possible.
And in our era of rapacious capitalism, who would turn down a million dollars for turning a blind eye? Or claiming a foul was committed when it clearly wasn't? There are so many ways to rationalise a decision like that. Yet people have been known to commit suicide when their team loses a major event. Let's hope the penalty was awarded to Italy out of over-zealousness or plain incompetence.
Hardly a match in any sport goes by without it being ruined by a bad call. It happens so often that you wonder why people continue to bother. But they do, and it's a worry. The reason is simple: they forget. Sports fans begin watching each match in a state of tabula rasa. They keep thinking their team's skills will get them through, or that if the other team's skills are better, then the loss will be honourable. They keep forgetting to take the referees and umpires into account. They keep forgetting from one match to the next, from one season to the next, that sooner or later a great match they have been looking forward to is going to be ruined by some officious fool who thinks he is God.
Add to the refereeing incompetence in all sports the agonising tension caused by soccer's low scoring and it is no wonder that "the beautiful game" is host to the world's worst sporting violence. Most other sports allow you to blow off steam by the continued scoring of goals, points or runs, but not soccer. As someone said, "it's all foreplay and no orgasm." Fine if you are a Tantric Buddhist, but if you've been throwing back suds after suds with your nerves strung as tight as a tennis racket, you are ready to commit mayhem by the end.
There have been other lowlights of this World Cup, all mentioned in detail by sportswriters. The Socceroos were worthy and honourable to a man, as was dear Guus "La Bestia" Hiddink. But Josip Simunic of Croatia gets my vote for the worst example of unsportmanlike behaviour. After being handed a second yellow card, the git stayed on the pitch, taking advantage of the referee's oversite in not sending him off. And then, at the end, he was given a third yellow card. Pathetic. There has to be an award for the player with the wildest name, and that goes to Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink. Pronounced with Dutch gusto, it's a name I intend to memorise.
The World Cup is the greatest show on earth because it is a reminder that, contrary to the prevailing dog-eat-dog philosophy of "me and mine and to hell with yours," we are all in this life together. Seeing all these people from so many countries is reminiscent of the mind-blowing television coverage of the dawn of the 21st century, when each country began celebrating as the clock struck midnight. Viewers were made aware, time zone by time zone, of the simultaneous existence of earth's inhabitants.
But after watching most of some four World Cups since 1978, I came into this one with no illusions that I was going to witness unadulterated sporting glory. Almost every match has been decided, not by the players, but by the referees.
It all seems like such a waste. Sport has replaced religion as the opium of the masses. Spending one's life as a devoted spectator of sport can be summed up thus: Life wasn't meant to be fair. And then you die.
-- Hyper Roland
PS: At least we won't have to endure those repulsive "Stuff history" ads any more. The idea may have had merit, but the result was chunderous. Whoever convinced Nike and Terry Camilleri to go through with it should be tarred and feathered.
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What a coincidence: Published in The Age today, Tim Colebatch had no idea how relevant this article would be, Lovely game, but badly in need of serious reform
