Professional football is like a bubble.
Outside it you will meet every laissez-faire form of it; Street football, beach soccer, indoor futsal, you name them. Inside it though houses a different kind of animal mainly bothering on corporate culture.
And as with cultures, they tend to they evolve. This is based on the constant need to improve rules of engagement and the overall well being of all stake and shareholders.
Real Madrid on Saturday ran out winners in Cardiff denying Juventus the chance to lift the trophy for the third time in their history and at the same time condemning them to a 7th champions League final loss.
Sadly for the corporate soul of the beautiful game, a certain Madrid player called Sergio Ramos made mockery of the rules and regulation tablet of soccer’s governing councils.
It is one thing to cook up antics during a do or die football match in a bid to entrap anybody silly enough to be controlled by his emotions. But when leading 3-1 with 6 minutes to go?Absolutely not. Ramos’s theatrics that lead to the sending off of Juan Cuadrado on Saturday was absolutely diabolical.
It reeks of one who has no pint of human conscience and for a player that has spent the large part of El Clasico matches against Barcelona complaining of Pique and his team mates’ deceitful theatrics, he should be ashamed of himself.
As baffling as the Galatico’s captain was, the depressive part of that fracas is that neither UEFA nor FIFA will deem his action worthy of retrospective punishment.
Outside the bubble, antics like that can fly but inside, where stakes are insanely high, this latest action demands a swift reaction. We can only hope UEFA think likewise.
