FIFA against joy
FIFA are nothing if not thorough. Their referees’ guidelines on the thorny issue of post-goal stripteases leave absolutely nothing to chance. A peep at this helpful document, which includes photos of footballers in various states of undress, will provide Zen-like enlightenment.
Football’s governing body will allow you to bare your nipples to the world without punishment, so long as the bottom of your shirt doesn’t pass over the top of your head. But when the shirt seam crosses your hairline…well, that warrants a yellow card.
“Removing one’s shirt after scoring is unnecessary and players should avoid such excessive displays of joy,” states the rule book. Joy is bad.
Olympique Marseille put local rivals Nice to the sword on Sunday; Toilfilou Maoulida scored the only goal of the game. As the winger wheeled away to celebrate, he reached into his sock and produced a piece of strapping tape bearing the legend “C’est pour vous Coach Fernandez” - “That’s for you Coach Fernandez”. The unfortunate man in charge at the Velodrome is laid up in hospital after surgery to remove gallstones.
Touched as I am by this outpouring of affection, Maoulida escaped without a booking! All right, he didn’t take his shirt off, but remember, we’re referees now: joy is bad. If stripping is “excessive”, this should have been a hanging offence. There’s clear evidence of premeditation - I’d have given him a straight red.
Seriously though, I would like to know why there was no yellow card. Did the referee take the circumstances into account or do the rules simply not cover get-well-soon greetings? If there are any men in black reading this, maybe you could take a break from animal sacrifices and beating your children to let us know. That’s a joke, of course - where would you get children from?
May 28th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
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