Sometimes We Need Some Good News

This isn’t LPM-related, except in a convoluted way. But I’ve been reading a lot of bad news lately (not all of it about the Legal world, of course). Here’s something that should gladden the heart.

Miroslav Klose, a soccer star in the top Italian league (Serie A), used his hand to help propel a ball into the net… and then, when the ref didn’t see it, he told the referee about it. The goal came off the board.

It’s particularly gratified because he was being fouled himself (technically, being mugged) when he did it; look at the replay sequence starting 0:46 seconds into the video.

One of the things I love about golf is that it’s one of the rare sports where players are encouraged and expected to call fouls on themselves when they do something wrong. You see the pros do it regularly, if you can stand watching golf on TV, even when it costs them a tournament, even when it’s not at all clear whether they did indeed break a rule.

One of the reasons I stopped racing my sailboat was because I was tired of a sport in which competitors are supposed to self-police but would outright lie to avoid admitting to a foul. Not all of the sailors did this, probably not even close to a majority, but it happened often enough to make racing less fun. There were certain sailors who continually pushed the envelope in a rude and arrogant manner.¹

I suppose this story does interconnect with my article this morning about admitting mistakes, but mostly I just wanted to share this report of good sportsmanship.