Thursday, January 28, 2010

Ronaldo and his red card...


Has anyone noticed how much a red card provides to talk about? I guess it has something to do with who it was shown to, right? Indeed, once again it´s Cristiano Ronaldo (a.k.a CR9) who has shown his both extremes in his character. In Real Madrid´s home game to Málaga C.F. last Sunday, Ronaldo made critics quiet down when he scored his first and second goals of 2010 with great spirit, leadership and obviously, talent.


However, this was not precisely the reason his name was all over the news again. It was because of his some-could-call-it violent behaviour. He broke an opponent´s nose. That´s right... He broke it in the action visualised above.

Here comes the debate about whether the actual action and result should be penalised, or whether the intention be the one to consider. Ronaldo ended the game saying that it was a disgraceful decision by the referee, and the Referee Committee in Spain has decided to award him with a two match ban.

The claim by the club, and Ronaldo himself (obviously) is that his intention is to simply keep playing and entertaining in that action. All he´s doing is trying to shove off the defender who is actually committing a foul on him. Therefore there is no "violent" or "aggressive" intention. However, this is quite debatable from the action:


Real has appealed the decision (even though they have never won an appeal during the existence of this Committee) and are awaiting a decision to suspend the decision allowing their €96m signing to play this Saturday night against a tough Deportivo de la Coruña, in Riazor, a stadium that has been deadly and punitive to the Madrid side for years.

Will the same motive that made this become such a popular subject in the media since the incident have an influence on the Committee´s decision?