First, the Messi incident. It’s really quite simple. Messi’s cheating lies not simply in the fact that he intended to cheat. The real gravamen of his offence is that he knows he has handled the ball into the net, but still claims a goal. It is irrelevant whether it was his initial intention to cheat or not. The reality is that most players who handball in these situations will have gone up for the ball intending to head it, find it is out of reach and then used their hand instead. The fact remains, however, that by claiming a goal when he has knowingly put the ball in the net with his hand, the player is cheating.

The punishment should be the same whether the player initially intended to use his head or his hand, because what is being punished is not the intention, but the cheating, i.e. the blatant deception involved in claiming a goal when he knows that he has put it in the net with his hand. Usually at least one player on the opposing side sees the handball. A referee could then ask the video ref: “is there any reason why I should not award a goal?” The video ref could then say, “Yes, Messi/Maradona handled the ball. Free kick to defending team”. The match referee could then mete out appropriate punishment to the Messi/Maradona miscreant, i.e., red/yellow card.

Second, with regards to the Crouch type incident. I would agree with you that this is a less clear cut example of cheating than the Maradona/Messi hand ball situations. What it does do, however, is illustrate the advantage of introducing a video ref. You speak of fouls and aggression being part of the game at all levels. True. But I hope we would agree that all fouls should be punished. There is no more aggressive team sport than Rugby. Yet, if a player unlawfully holds another player back off the ball, to allow his team mate to run in and score a try, a video ref could inform the match referee that the try should not be allowed because of the off-the-ball incident (we saw this happen in a recent Rugby world cup game).

If an incident of the Crouch-dreadlocks kind is missed by the match officials, I see no reason why a player should not subsequently be punished. Pulling another player’s hair, like raising your hands to his face, is completely unacceptable. But doing so – not out of anger – but calculated to gain an advantage i.e. score a goal, is not only contrary to the rules of the game but is also cheating.

The thrust of your contentions appear to be to condone cheating, or at the very least permit players to continue to get away with it. My concern is to prevent it. Where blatant cheating on critical decisions does occur, the players and (when appropriate) their teams should be punished.

I get the feeling that you are aiming at a scenario in which Peter Crouch uses the dreadlocks as leverage (fouls and aggression are part of the game at all levels, from 6 to 60 year olds), scores the goal before running over to the referee to confess to what he’s done in order to have the goal annulled. Is this really realistic?

Not every foul amounts to “cheating”. Cheating is really about gaining an unfair advantage by deception and contrary to the rules of the game. It is a question of fact and degree in each individual circumstance. Kicking or attemting to kick, tripping or attempting to trip, or spitting at an opponent are all “fouls” within the rules of the games but do not necessarily amount to cheating.

On the other hand, intentionally handling the ball into the net or holding an opponent down by his dreadlocks in other to give oneself leverage to head the ball into the net and then claiming a “goal” are not only fouls, but may also amount to cheating if an element of deception is present. If the player commits the offence unseen by the match officials, knows full well that he has broken the rules but then tries to “con” the match officials into awarding a goal, then he is attempting to cheat.

Tripping another player, intentionally or recklessly in full view of the referee is a foul but is not cheating because there is no element of deception involved. The referee simply needs to be make a judgment call on what he has seen.

Consequently, the basic difference between mere fouls on the one hand and cheating on the one other hand, is the element of “deception” involved on the player’s part. Is a player who has committed a foul unseen by the referee trying to con the referee? If he tries to con the ref, he is attempting to cheat: if he gets away with it, he has cheated.