Did Ronlado rob Ghana with that penalty at the World Cup 22?

I hate the disputes that inevitably result from important football matches.

Disputes in World Cup matches are particularly difficult to swallow, because, of course, the stakes are extremely high indeed in that competition.

The case is made worse when one feels cheated because one’s country has been the victim of a biased, or even worse, incompetent decision.

A biased decision can be clearly exposed as such, but an incompetent decision needs an expert examination, and that’s not the cup of tea of your ordinary football enthusiast. Or annoyingly, complacent FIFA officials.

So you say, Christiano Ronaldo wasn’t fouled! He fell down in a practiced simulation!

And immediately everyone jumps up and says, “Yeah, tough! Do you really expect us to believe that you would admit that he was truly fouled? Who do you think we are? Naive babies? You can’t be an armchair footballer and be unaware that penalty decisions are the most disputed football issue pin the world! – Well, maybe, after off-sides!”

What can one say in answer to those types of observations? Only this, that the world of football ought to understand the game and its rules better. After all, it is FIFA, the ruling body that makes the rules.

Following many years of breaking the hearts of football fans with terrible decisions, FIFA, in its wisdom, decided to introduce VAR – a system of Video Assisted Refereeing. In doing that, FIFA was following another game in which umpiring decisions were used to provoke an enormous amount of controversy: cricket.

But FIFA has somehow managed to fudge the issue of VAR decisions and created confusion. Whereas in cricket, decisions by umpires can be reviewed upon an appeal by teams. During a specified amount of time, in football, the VAR system can only come into play IF the VAR operators first draw the attention of the referee by phone to a mistaken decision he’s taken.

It is only then that the referee can go and watch the incident on video and agree with his fellow umpires in the TV room, that the initial decision was wrong.

In Ghana’s match with Portugal on 24 November 2022, it was pretty clear that Christiano Ronaldo feigned or simulated the attack on him in the 64th minute by Ghana’s Mohammed Salisu.

Both players went for the ball; Salisu reached it first and actually brushed his foot on it before Ronaldo bumped into him. Ronaldo then conveniently fell down. As intended. And he was awarded a penalty. Of course, he scored.

Now, we see this sort of irritating simulation in football matches week in, and week out, and it was a great pity that Portugal was made to profit from it, instead of being punished, by Ronaldo being given a yellow card for feigning.

What a shame that this shenanigan should have been applied to a Ghana side that was so good that it was almost immediately able to equalize, and go on to score another goal to bring the score to 3-2.

Worse for Ghana, a clear offside goal by Portugal had been allowed to stand. Again, inexplicably, without recourse to the VAR system!

Most Ghanaians and other Africans as well as informed neutrals think always that the result should have been 2-2. And it isn’t Africans alone saying it: if you GOOGLE *referee Dean on Ghana-Portugal penalty*

you will be taken through an excellent demo of why VAR should have been used to squelch Ronaldo's villainous penalty claim and the resultant goal.

Some other soccer pundits have described the goal as a “gift” to Ronaldo and Portugal! Quite a shame to the Portuguese and Ronaldo in particular, given their high standing in world football. How many children are going to trash their RONALDO jerseys?

The type of trick used by Ronaldo is witnessed, day in and day out, by football fans, and it is quite difficult to understand why the American referee of the Ghana-Portugal encounter could not have detected what Ronaldo had done.

Was the referee’s error due to inexperience? (You see, until recently, “soccer” had been a relatively minor game in the US, and does not have the same experienced supervising personnel as, say, “American football” or baseball does, in the US.

In any case, whether he was experienced or not, whether he was competent or not, VAR was there to assist the referee and he should have been obliged to make use of it.

For if it is not to be used, then what is its purpose?

It was Ghana’s bad luck that an American referee was in charge of the match with Portugal, in the first place. It was doubly unlucky for Ghana that the VAR system could not be triggered into action at such a vital moment. FIFA will have to be pressurized, protesting, and kicking once again, to modify its VAR system and bring the VAR system into line with cricket. That game was also, once upon a time, ruled by stuffy and intransigent officials. But cricket is now one of the most competent adjudicated games.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Black Stars should learn a hard lesson from the Ronaldo incident. It is this: non-African referees tend to award too many fouls against black players, in a race-based prejudice that black players are too “rough” or “robust” in their tracks. Such a racist belief has gained ground and it is almost impossible to shake it off quickly and easily.

So our boys should be extremely careful when attacking. An attack can be effective without looking threatening; they should learn how to do that.

Meanwhile, good luck to them against South Korea!