Another classic example from the football world. It is right that punishments for “unacceptable” transgressions of rules are in some sense arbitrary in their severity.
If there becomes a rule for the punishments against breaking the rule, then we have a game-changer where calculations based on the punishment become part of the rule-breaking decision. Pardew is wrong for this very reason, precisely because he wants clarity on the punishments. Liverpool in this example, but Chelski are the usual suspects in this morality play. I last highlighted this in the Hazard / Ballboy counter example here and the John Terry / “Professional” Foul case here.
2 thoughts on “Lack of Clarity is Better”