Fair play isn't dead

For all the haters out there - you know who you are - that say soccer (football) is a sport filled with posers, hooligans et al, here's your sign!



Credit 101 Great Goals for finding this one and The Beautiful Game for highlighting it.

That's right, these are two teams from the professional league in Iran, as 101 puts it, 'one of the 'Axis of Evil'. Normally in football, if a player goes down, play is allowed to continue unless there appears to be a serious injury. In any case, it's usually the referee that blows the whistle to stop play (Rule highlight: That's why there is extra or 'injury' time at the end of each half).

In this case, the opposing keeper was down for the count and the loose ball fell to an opponent who had worked his way into space and was preparing to shoot into an open net. Instead, the striker kicked the ball into touch (out of bounds) and pointed to the injured keeper.

Fair play, indeed.

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