well the Hopman Cup's clearly some Mickey Mouse tournament that Federer's not bothered about - let's see him do it in a Grand Slam final...Originally Posted by Letters
well the Hopman Cup's clearly some Mickey Mouse tournament that Federer's not bothered about - let's see him do it in a Grand Slam final...
@Letters
You're picking up on small, one-off instances from other sports and blowing them up as the norm, when they're not. There's a list as long as your arm of snooker players who have been caught match fixing, for example. You even mention rugby - let's not get into the whole fake blood shenangins that was rife across the game. Have a read of this if you want too (https://www.independent.ie/sport/rug...-36241263.html).
One-off instances happen in football too. As I explained above with tennis, when you spend more time watching a sport, you become more aware of the way players bend, push and break the rules.
The tennis and cricket was amazing on Sunday, but let's not get carried away that the sports are played by saints.
As always, sport is a reflection of society, which means cheating and trying to get one step ahead of everyone else at any cost happens anywhere you care to pay attention to closely enough.
Last edited by SMatthews; 17-07-2019 at 09:14 AM.
i'm not convinced Stokes was entirely innocent in the 'rebound' incident either...
Possibly but it's impossible to really tell and I'm sure any other player would've done the same too in the same situation.
I'm not. But are you denying that the level of respect for officials in, say, Rugby is different from football?
I'm not saying other sports don't have any cheats in. And sure, you can cherry pick instances to back up any point so fine, I'll accept that.
But cheating is more ingrained in football than in other sports.
Just my observation from watching sport.
Read the rugby link I posted above, that might give you a different perspective.
Interesting, and parts of that imply that it's a relatively recent problem in Rugby. Historically it always seemed to me there are far more respect in Rugby - I rarely watch it because it bores me, but I don't think you get the players surrounding the referee and screaming in their face like you do in football.
I couldn't find stats to back this up but my perception from watching sport generally is that cheating is is far more ingrained in the culture of football than some other sports.
I did find this which implies I'm not alone in this opinion
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...any-goalkeeper
Although, that article is a good 9 years old now and a lot has changed since then as the article above suggest. Whether or not rugby players respect the ref kind of goes out of the window if they are cheating on the field trying to undermine them at every turn - it's perhaps even more devious. I think rugby authorities protect their officials even more - if you touch one you are likely to get banned. You might get sent off in football, but there will rarely be any retrospective action and a lot of refs are more lenient. I'm not for a second saying footballers don't cheat and do everything they can to get one up on each other, but I do think other sports people will do it in every other instance wherever they can in the modern age. It's just a societal thing.
I think sports have different cultures, the types of people who go into those sports have different attitudes.
I'm trying not to use the word "class", but that is a factor certainly in the UK.
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