One the eve of The Netherlands’ semi-final against Uruguay, one man in particular will be notorious by his absence. Luis Suarez’s dramatic volleyball-style clearance off the line in the last minute of extra time of Uruguay’s quarter-final match against Ghana has divided the opinions of football fans across the world. Whilst Uruguayans are calling his actions ‘the hand of god’ and ‘hand of an angel’, others find his actions truly abhorrent. The vast range of reactions prompted by Suarez is truly amazing.

My first reaction after watching the Ghana’s effort being cleared off the line was one of disgust and disbelief. I turned to onlookers in the London bar I was frequenting to share my fury, but I was genuinely surprised to find that not very many people seemed to agree with me. The bloke standing beside me had already decided that Suarez was a “legend” – spoken without even a trace of irony.

A part of me wanted to put the difference in opinion down to a cultural divide. There is a lingering belief amongst the football fraternity in the British Isles that we still play the game it was meant to be played – as gentlemen. No diving about to deceive the referee, no rolling about on the floor a la Klinsmann, and certainly nothing as unsportsmanlike as to palm the ball off the line to prevent a certain goal. However, whilst abiding by these unwritten rules may have been adhered to many, many eons ago, the same cannot be said of the British game today. In the Premier League, strikers (of any nationality, not just English) fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes as soon as they anticipate a challenge in the penalty area; players regularly perform double-pirouettes followed by pikes to sway the referee into a decision; swearing at officials is commonplace; and Steven Taylor and Phil Neville have both committed intentional goal-saving hand balls in recent seasons. English football fans have no case to be so self-righteous. Our game is just as littered with rule-bending and gamesmanship as any other. This of course is not evidence to judge whether or not Suarez’s actions can be deemed as cheating, but simply negates any judgement based upon a belief that the English/British game is somehow more ‘worthy’, ‘honest’ or sportsmanlike.

The difference in opinion of English football fans in microcosm also shows that the wider difference of opinion isn’t down to cultural differences. I was still incensed enough when I returned home from watching the game that I updated my Facebook profile to ‘Poor old Ghana. I can only hope Suarez will be banned for a long time for that disgraceful hand-ball’ only for English friends to immediately comment with opinions such as ‘hero’ and ‘legend’. It seems that football fans each have their own individual reasons for believing Suarez’s actions to be acceptable or otherwise. Some arguments are better than others.

One of the more popular reasons that people cite to excuse Suarez is that they believe his actions were somehow instinctive. This would certainly seem to iron out any case for the actions to resemble pre-meditated cheating. Postulating whether his actions were indeed instinctive will ultimately prove fruitless, as only Suarez will really know. However, analysis of the replay in my opinion seems to show that he could have headed the ball away, or at least made an attempt to. I believe that the instinct argument would only effectively come into play if the ball was heading directly for his head, and he palmed the ball away to protect himself. Survival instinct, if you like. This clearly wasn’t the case, though. If you are trying to excuse his actions as some sort of football instinct, then I don’t believe this argument is particularly potent either. Football instinct for me would suggest that you don’t use your hands (unless you are a goalkeeper). Unless Suarez is also a professional volleyball player on the sly, I don’t believe that his actions were purely instinctive.

Many also state that they would have done the same, including ex-England striker Alan Shearer in his post-match analysis on the BBC. It is a situation which I have thought about many times during my life as a football fan. The story in my head is that I am an England player participating in a World Cup final against (you guessed it!) Germany and I have the opportunity to clear the ball off the line with my hand in the dying embers of the game to prevent Germany pulling level. As a boy, I always thought that I would do it. I’d return home to England as a hero and go down in English football folklore. However, my feelings have changed dramatically since then. I personally am fed up with gamesmanship in football. It is the one thing that really puts me off watching the game. There have been countless occasions in this World Cup that players have fallen down unnecessarily (note: Daniele De Rossi’s ridiculous diving, complete with contorted facial expressions) and others who have stayed down feigning injury to waste time, only to spring to their feet as soon as the stretcher has transported them from the field. I don’t behave this way when I play football, and I’d like to think I wouldn’t change that no matter how high the stakes were. Whether hand-balling on the line is cheating or gamesmanship, I wouldn’t do it either way. The integrity of the game needs to be upheld, and sportsmanship needs to triumph over gamesmanship, otherwise a lot of people will start to lose their interest in football at the highest level.

Some people believe that Suarez’s actions were intentional, but were understandable given the situation. They believe that Suarez has weighed up the situation, and gauged that the benefits of him clearing off the line illegally outweigh the negatives. If he doesn’t – Uruguay go out, if he does – Uruguay progress. Some suggest that he has done a very noble thing in sacrificing himself for the cause of the team. These are things that I just cannot accept. I am an avid England supporter. If one of our players had done the same as Suarez and England progressed, I would not be happy. It would be an empty win, a hollow victory. Even if I accept that his actions were purely gamesmanship, and not cheating, I still wouldn’t want to win a game through those means. To some, Suarez’s actions were clever and calculated, but for me they were conniving and manipulative. What really got my goat was Suarez celebrating and wildly fist-pumping when Ghana missed the resultant spot-kick. His actions weren’t instinctive, he knew exactly what he was doing, and he was reaping his reward.

Another argument is that the referee abided by all the rules, so what is there to argue about? Suarez was sent off and Ghana were awarded a penalty, so in the eyes of the rules, justice has been served. Just because Ghana missed the penalty doesn’t mean that the rules were wrong – just that Ghana were too poor to profit from Suarez’s risk that he took. In terms of the laws of the game, I do not think they need to be changed. You can’t start giving goals for situations in which the ball has not crossed the line. Some people argue that in Rugby, teams are sometimes awarded penalty tries for certain types of infringement. However, football is an entirely different sport. Yes, they both use a ball, but in most other ways they are incomparable. The Suarez hand ball was quite obvious, but how would the referee give a ‘penalty goal’ in a case where things were not so clear cut? For instance, say the ball hits a defender on the top of his arm where it connects with the shoulder, coupled with the fact that the ball was swerving wildly and its final destination was unsure. The referee wouldn’t know whether it was a hand-ball, whether it was intentional, and whether the ball would have ended up in the net anyway. A ‘penalty goal’ law would have to be applicable in all situations and it is not clear how this would be possible. However, in my mind, I can’t help but feel that a penalty in Ghana’s favour and Suarez’s sending off just isn’t commensurate with the goal that surely would have occurred had he not hand-balled it and almost certainly taken Ghana through to the next round. Nine times out of ten, Asamoah Gyan would have scored that penalty, but 9/10^th’s of a goal is sadly not a goal.

For me, Suarez’s actions were a calculated risk. He knew that he would be sent off and give away a penalty, but that was worth his sacrifice. Some see this as gamesmanship, others as cheating. What seems clear to me, though, is that his actions were incredibly unsportsmanlike. I can see why many think his actions were noble, but this is a view that I cannot share. I believe Luis Suarez struck a blow to the integrity of football that evening, but many people do not, and never will agree with me. In the words of Ron Burgundy from Anchorman, we’ll just have to “Agree to disagree”.