Ukrainian forward and Brazilian native Luiz Adriano has been banned for one match after he found guilty of using unethical ways to score a goal against Nordsjaelland in Champions League on Tuesday in Denmark. UEFA classified this goal as in violation of ‘principals of the conducts’ and barred him from the field. Moreover, a disciplinary case is also opened against him that is expected to be decided by next Tuesday. The controversy started when play was halted coz of an injury caused to a Nordsjaelland player, and in between, Adriano made everyone surprised when he collected Willian’s kick intended to home goalkeeper, and shot into the empty net. Referee did not find any violation to the rules with that goal hence allowed it as a legal one, but it made Nordsjaelland’s fans furious, and they started hooting Adriano. Later, Shakhtar won that match with a huge 5-2 margin, but the dark point of this match remained that ‘unethical’ goal fired with a bad intention.
Nicolai Stokholm, Nordsjaelland’s captain, later said, “Their striker didn’t get it. I looked down at my armband and there’s something about respect — it has to be said we didn’t see much of that. We thought that they would give us a goal. Half their team seemed to think so too, but the other half didn’t.” Since according to the rules books, there was nothing wrong with that goal, yet, UEFA took its stance and penalized the forward on ethical grounds. It said, it took the action according to Article 5 of its disciplinary regulations that says, “insulting or otherwise violates the basic rules of decent that brings the sport of football, and UEFA in particular, into disrepute.”
Even Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach, apologized about Adriano’s immoral behavior and said, that he had allowed its players to let Nordsjaelland score a goal and take a lead of 2-1 again. Moreover, this is the first time, Adriano has been accused of using unfair means to score, earlier too; he has been found guilty of using same practice in another Champion league match against Barcelona four years back. This is really a bad memory in soccer, which is considered as one of the most respectable games of sports, perhaps, this is the same game where in 1999, Arsenal replayed an FA Cup match against Sheffield United when they found their winning goal was not scored with a sense of decency.