Best football fair play? Denmark player deliberately missed a penalty in 2003 | OneFootball

Morten Wieghorst is one of very few players who can ever say that they deliberately missed a penalty.

Even the most famous example of a moment along those lines where Robbie Fowler protested against Liverpool winning a spot-kick at Arsenal in 1997, only to subsequently miss himself, wasn’t all that it seemed.

Don’t get it twisted, it was still a stunning moment of fair play from Fowler to plead with referee Gerald Ashby that it wasn’t a penalty in the first place, but it’s a common misunderstanding that he then deliberately missed his effort from 12 yards.

When Fowler protested against Liverpool winning a penalty

Fowler, ever the professional, had ultimately failed in his attempts to change the match official’s mind with honesty and subsequently returned to the job at hand: scoring goals.

According to the Guardian, the man himself explained after the game: “As a goalscorer it’s part of my job to take it and I wanted to score it. I tried to score. I never missed on purpose. It just happened, it was a bad penalty.”

The moment has since gone onto become one of the most famous instances of fair play in Premier League history and Fowler deservedly bagged Uefa’s Fair Play award that year for his efforts.

Video: Fowler tells referee that Liverpool shouldn’t have a won a penalty

However, not that this is some sort of strange competition where the fair-playest fair play is the most fair play fair play of all, we’re upping the ante even more to a penalty that was missed on purpose.

And that’s where we come back to the aforementioned Wieghorst because the same Guardian article that explains what happened with Fowler’s miss also mentioned this former Celtic hero.

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We’ll start easy…

Michu Chico Flores

When Wieghorst deliberately missed a penalty

Wieghorst, who played at Celtic Park for seven years, did indeed spurn the opportunity to score from the penalty spot on purpose while captaining Denmark during a Carlsberg Cup match against Iran in 2003.

In truly bizarre scenes, an Iranian defender mistook a whistle from the stands as the referee signalling for half-time and proceeded to pick up the ball with his hands in the penalty area.

As such, a penalty was awarded for deliberate handball, but common sense obviously dictated that the player shouldn’t really be punished with a goal for what was an honest mistake.

So, after consulting with coach Morten Olsen, Wieghorst showed truly heartwarming sportsmanship by proceeding to pass the penalty miles wide of the post in a deliberate act of fair play.

Quoted as explaining: “It was unfair to capitalise on that,” Wieghorst’s kind gesture truly is such a unique moment in football history that it would be rude not to relive it for yourself down below:

A reminder of what’s important in football

You love to see it. The game’s not always about trying to win and score by any means necessary.

And although Denmark actually went onto lose the game courtesy of a – you couldn’t write this – penalty by Javad Nekounam in the 48th minute, Wieghorst was nevertheless garlanded with a Olympic Committee fair play award for his actions.

It really is an important reminder to anyone playing sport at any level that showing compassion and empathy with your opponents can often be more important than any final score or accolade.

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There are a lot of lessons to be learned both from Fowler’s honesty at Highbury and Wieghorst’s miss in Hong Kong when it comes to remembering what’s truly important in the beautiful game.