For centuries, gamesmanship has been an important part of sport. In any walk of life, the desire to gain any advantage possible dominates the minds of many. In sport, sometimes quality can only take one so far. Tactics and stretching the laws of the game can negate even the greatest’s ability and tip proceedings in one’s favour. There comes a point when gamesmanship — or, in the eyes of the righteous, cheating — can make all the difference.

Chelsea’s Diego Costa has a reputation for this. He has mastered the art of stretching the rules; of trying to injure players when the referee isn’t looking; of winding up opponents so they get sent off. Not only does he carry the threat of scoring many goals, when he doesn’t score, he usually gives his team an advantage through gamesmanship.

The Line Between Gamesmanship and Violence: Why Costa Must be Reprimanded

That is not the problem. All footballers almost without exception have got the better of the officials at some time or other. In some footballing cultures, these kind of tactical ploys are seen as necessity rather than a moral dilemma. Most great teams past and present have mastered other aspects of the game than merely footballing ones. The problem is that players like Diego Costa are consistently getting away with dangerous and harmful play without even receiving a slap on the wrist for it.

In Chelsea’s latest victory over Arsenal, Costa gave his team a game-changing advantage when he managed to get Arsenal’s excellent defender Gabriel sent off. He appeared to try to put his fingers in Laurent Koscielny’s eyes, and, when the Frenchman confronted him, appeared to head-butt him. To Koscielny’s credit, he got straight back up and managed to keep calm, but his defensive partner was irked. Gabriel and Costa began to have a scuffle, and referee Mike Dean cautioned both. Afterwards, Gabriel either walked into or stamped on him, according to differing viewpoints, and Costa went straight to Dean, who promptly sent the Arsenal player off.

This incident will be long debated. Perhaps Costa should have been off the field before Gabriel had the chance to make contact with him again. Perhaps Gabriel should not have reacted at all. This is not the problem. Costa using a tactical ploy to get a member of the opposition sent off is a part of football and a different moral issue. The issue at hand is that he took the incident beyond gamesmanship and deserves to be at least reprimanded for violent conduct.

Firstly, he put his hands on Koscielny’s face and appeared to be trying to gouge his eyes. Next, he slapped him in the face. But the most violent of the lot was the scratching of Gabriel’s neck. All three of these are examples of extremely dangerous play which must be stopped. There are very clear videos and images of all these incidents, and although the officials missed them, the FA do not have to ignore them.

What is much more important than investigating any refereeing decisions or red cards is making sure that violent conduct is not tolerated. Costa has done things like sticking his fingers in people’s eyes before. This is where the line between gamesmanship and violence is crossed. What bearing this has on the result of a football match is not important when it comes to physical harm. It must be made clear to all footballers that stretching of the rules can be tolerated, but not violence. The FA should not punish him or tell him off for winding people up: that’s a part of the game that has to be accepted. However, they must intervene to stop him from actively doing harm to other professionals.

It simply should not be the case that if a player acts dangerously but gets away with it, no further action is taken. Players must be warned that actively putting other players at risk is unacceptable. The FA have quite rightly punished others for violent conduct. Most recently, Stockport County’s Glenn Rule received a hefty ban for exceptionally violent conduct. This is not a call for Costa to be banned for excessive periods of time, more that it must be made clear to him that he cannot continue to behave so dangerously.

If no action is taken by the FA, not even a warning, then it will show that English football’s governing body not only are unwilling to admit that referees get things wrong, but that it is OK to hurt someone provided you get away with it. This is not a palatable example for the biggest sport in the world’s self-proclaimed “best league” to be setting.