The debate rages on

Four days have passed and there is still discussion about the Uruguayan player - Suarez - stopping a certain goal with his hand while the opposition denied the goal had to make do with a penalty; a mere opportunity to recover the goal denied through cheating.

The penalty was missed. There was no time for a restart. The game went to penalty shoot out and Uruguay won.

A penalty goal has been suggested for where it's certain that a goal was prevented.

In Rugby, the officials can award a penalty try (rather than a penalty kick) and this action immediately restores the value of the points lost to the illegal stopping of the try.

Some say Rugby only does that because a penalty would be of less value than a try. But with three different values of points already, depending on the type of score, they could have declared a penalty kick in such situations to have an equal value to the type of score denied by illegal means.

Clearly, by awarding a penalty try, the rule-making authorities ensured the team wronged still received the points they were cheated out of, whereas a penalty kick offered no such guarantee; the kick could have missed.

Someone I was arguing with said

In no other instance of foul play in football is the victim guaranteed full redress - why make an exception for this?

Well, how about because in no other instance of foul play in football is the victim denied a certain goal - so make an exception for it.