Ever heard the phrase cheaters never prosper?
Maybe you’re thinking that it’s not true, that if you really want to win you should
do everything you possibly can to get there.
Maybe you think rules are there to be broken, or that the ends justify the means…
Well, these cheaters obviously thought that too, but they were caught in the act and justice
was swift.
Ready to learn what the consequences are for breaking the rules of a great sport?
Let’s get it on!
You don’t always have to tamper with equipment or hurt an opponent to make a huge difference
in a match though.
Sometimes all you need to do is mess up the ground you’re playing on.
Marwin Hitz decided that was the best way to stop his opponents earning a goal that
might just have won them the game, so he dug his studs into the ground around the penalty
spot to dig up the turf.
Sure it’s not a surefire way to cheat, it might not have done anything.
Unfortunately for the other team though, it did work.
As Hitz’s opponents went to kick, he slipped, and that was the end of that, while Hitz escaped
punishment… well, almost escaped punishment.
Hilariously, he was sent a bill to cover the cost of repairing the field, and he decided
to make a donation to a children’s hospital because he obviously realised everyone was
starting to dislike him at that point.
There are all kinds of opportunities to cheat in normal circumstances during a match, but
to cheat when you’re not even on the field?
That can’t be easy, but it has happened.
Have a look at his excellent play - it looks like a surefire thing, nothing can stop Jacoby
Jones now! ...except for Mike Tomlin, the opposing team’s coach, who just happens
to be standing ever so slightly on the field and facing the other way.
Sure maybe it was an accident, but maybe not.
There are some subtle clues to suggest that this was a dirty trick.
He’s glancing over his shoulder at the approaching players long before he steps out of the way,
and he walks away with a smile that’s at least suggestively smug.
After all, he was the only thing that could possibly save his team.
He did force Jones into the tackle.
At least, it looks that way.
Can anyone prove it?
Nope.
That’s some expert cheating and a nasty trick.
There’s acting, and then there’s overacting.
Neymar’s bid for Oscar glory definitely falls into the overacting category, although
it might just win a few comedy awards.
This particular incident was the result of another player ever so slightly brushing his
boot against Neymar’s ankle.
Although you would never know that’s what happened.
It looks like he’s had some kind of medieval torture device tested out on him.
Really, you wouldn’t even be able to guess from that performance that it was his ankle
he was claiming was injured.
Maybe he forgot which part of his body was meant to be hurt when he realised how itchy
the grass was that he was rubbing himself all over.
Professional sportsmen are usually composed, focused, dedicated people - the kind of people
who are capable of only looking at their own lane in a race and not at their competitors
passing them.
That’s why they’re pros and we’re not.
You’ll never see someone like that doing something stupid like trying to kick someone
off their motorcycle or something like that… unless you’re watching Romano Fenati riding
anywhere near Niklas Ajo.
For some reason, Fenati decided he didn’t like him, and suddenly the MotoGP was like
watching a bully on a school playground, bickering with someone.
And he just kept doing it, trying to push him off his bike and making rude gestures
at him, and any other weird petty behaviour he could think of.
He didn’t get away with it though.
It earned him 3 more penalty points, and he had to start from the last slot on the grid,
like a child on the naughty step.
There are complicated ways of cheating at a sport and those might get you better results
in the long run, but not everyone has that kind of time.
You might be in the situation that Antonio Brown is in here, where he has to act right
now or never get anywhere.
What would you, a rational person who doesn’t want to cause any serious, life-threatening
injuries to your teammates do?
Try to run around your opponents who are standing in your way?
Whatever you decide, it probably wouldn’t be the idea that you should kick someone square
in the face.
Some people think he was trying to jump over him and missed - at least that’s a more
rational explanation, but it still seems extreme, and he definitely paid for it.
What’s the opposite of cheating?
Not being a good sportsman, but making someone else look like they’re cheating when they’re
not?
Well whatever it is, if there was an award for it, LeBron James would win it.
Have a look at the huge performance he gives here when his opponent tries to smack the
ball but just misses and taps James on the face instead.
That’s some world class acting you’re witnessing there.
The head whipping!
The backward crawl along the floor!
The silent cries for help from the ref!
You won’t see a better performance than that in the biggest Hollywood films this year!
Sure, there are probably better ways to win a basketball match, but at least James knows
he has a career after his sporting career ends.
Some people make their name as a brilliant sportsman because they win everything.
Others seem to think they’re more likely to become famous and win everything by cheating.
Speaking of which, Romano Fenati has made it back on our list.
Why?
Because he reached across and pulled a fellow Moto2 racer’s brake while they were travelling
at 140mph.
That’s some seriously dangerous cheating, but luckily nobody was hurt.
That doesn’t mean that Fenati got away with it though - he was fired by his team because
of it.
Really, I don’t know what else he expected when he tried to pull a stunt like that.
So as we’ve just proven, it doesn’t work to make it look like someone punched you - or
at least, it takes some skill to make it work.
So what’s the best alternative if you want to take your opponent out of the game?
Punch them?
Even better - elbow them in the back.
It seems to work in the sense that Alex Song got what he wanted here: his opponent is off
the field in pain.
But - and there is always a “but” when you’re trying to cheat - he was also sent
off with a red card, and now everyone hates him a little bit.
It’s like these sportsmen forget that they have HD cameras watching their every move
and the video can be replayed to make sure of just how much of a poor sportsman they
were.
Bad call.
Of course, often the best way to come out on top is to make someone else look bad.
It’s morally wrong and makes you a horrible person, but it’s really sophisticated cheating
- until you get it wrong.
Then you just look stupid and horrible.
Brian Carrasco was thinking on his feet and saw a golden opportunity to get his opponent
sent off by making it look like he’d punched him in the face during a free kick… unfortunately,
he didn’t think about doing it surreptitiously, and instead just grabbed the guy’s arm and
smacked himself in the face with it, then rolled around a bit.
One thing’s for sure - it’ll be a long time before he gets any work as a stunt man
on movies - there was absolutely nothing convincing about his terrible attempt at cheating.
One of life’s great questions concerns why people do the wrong thing knowing they will
get caught.
In baseball, pine tar is illegal, so surely the logical thing to do is to not get caught
using pine tar.
Yankees pitcher, Michael Pineda, doesn’t seem to care that it’s illegal and keeps
using it anyway.
Of course, the last time this team caught him using it, it was on his hand.
Maybe he thought he was hiding it by putting it on his neck, but if he did, he needs a
mirror because you can see it a mile away.
Anyway, he was unsurprisingly sent off.
You just can’t get away with that kind of brazen cheating without at least being sent
off.
Especially when you’ve been caught cheating the same way before.
He needs a new hobby, he must have too much time on his hands… it’s probably getting
stuck to all the pine tar.
Pause for a moment and imagine the most cartoonish way to stop a basketball player from successfully
throwing the ball into the basket.
Were you thinking of sticking the ball to their hands?
Well that’s the answer.
That’s pretty much what happened during this game.
There’s a complaint about a sticky substance on the ball, an argument breaks out, and then
the officials have to run around the court telling all the players that using Stickum
on the ball is illegal as the coach is seen not so subtly putting the spray cans away.
Sure Stickum won’t completely stick your hands to the ball, but it is an adhesive used
to stop sporting apparatus slipping out of your hands, so it will no doubt make a big
difference.
It looks like obvious cheating, as Dwight Howard was the last one to touch the ball
and the coach had the cans.
The name of the coach who had the Stickum, incidentally, is JB Bickerstaff, in case you
needed any more convincing that this should be a scene from a kid’s cartoon.
Cricket is a favourite sport of many people all around the world, and many of them will
know that cricket balls are crucial to the game in more ways than you would expect.
Ever seen a player rub the ball on their pants before bowling?
They’re trying to smooth out the already smooth side of the ball to make it swing to
one side.
That’s allowed.
What’s not allowed is using sandpaper to make one side even more rough so it swings
the other way, making it incredibly difficult to hit it with the bat.
Still, Cameron Bancroft decided to do it anyway, and everything went nuts.
People were really upset because they planned their cheating ahead of the match, and it
left the Australian team in tatters - captain Steve Smith and David Warner were banned from
playing for a full year, Bancroft who was caught in the act was banned for 9 months,
and their coach resigned and cried on TV.
They probably won’t be trying that one again.