Zidane's final message

If somebody curses my family and loved ones, or my colour, or my background – with bile and malice – I shall clobber him. Hard.

There are limits to tolerance, I'm afraid. I'm no saint, I'm all DNA and bone, and far short of that new-age love-all cosmic dust.

Human. As are the other 6.6 billion people in this world, I suspect.

As is Zinedine Zidane.

Flesh and blood, yet so divine with the football, but flesh and blood no less. And in the world's finest football stage, on a night he was busily whipping out calligraphy on the turf, he did what he must now wish he did not do. He must have wished he could've carried the weight of his country's flag, he must have wished he upheld his role as a model to children with dreams, he must have wished he could've ended his career amid worldwide smiles and popping fireworks.

Instead, he was gravity-bound, flesh and blood, with human pride and a breaking point. Zidane, an artist most happy when at work, clobbered a provoking pretender during studio hours last night.

His sending off and the subsequent crashing of France didn't go down well with me. It wasn't anger, it was a strange sense of justice unfulfilled. It was a red card, yes. But something here was different - Zidane is no Christiano Ronaldo actor; it wasn't a Figo fit, it wasn't a Rooney stomp. It was something quite aside, undifferentiated as yet by the rules today.

Zidane's full-bodied head butt in the 108th minute of the final game has capped a wonderful World Cup 2006 and exposed new challenges to the managing of the sport. Sports columnists have been quick to condemn Zidane's act as a disgrace to France and to football. Disgrace! Shame! Stupid! But that's just what journalists do – self-appointed moral monitors as they are – they who comment as if our world was black-and-white as their print, and they who view themselves as pure angels above wrong-doing.

Video images of the final show Zidane already moving past a mouthing Marco Materazzi; the Frenchman stops, does a 180 turn and rams his head hard into the chest of the tall Italian defender. The moments prior to the act showed chest holding and shirt-tugging by the Italian. That's common enough in a game. Zizou was about to move on, get on with football; he had begun running to position, yet more words spilled forth from the Italian. Then the decided brake, turn and bam!

What was uttered that could unleash such wrath?

By any account, given the rules of the game as they stand, this was a red card. No question about it. But another question emerges from the fog of that incident: If rules are there to promote a good healthy game, then is the current set doing the job?

How low should peripheral tactics – diving, playacting, trash talking – be allowed to get if they begin to affect the very nature of sport? How do we protect the sanctity of the game? I fail to see the point in artless victories.

What is the spirit of sport? Perhaps it is best explained by another sports icon rather than another pontificating journalist.

In the summer of 1999, women's tennis saw an emerging darling Martina Hingis take on an ageing injury-plagued Steffi Graf in the French Open singles final. It was a difficult game, the sweetest in its genre, and Hingis, leading but increasingly frustrated at not being able to close out the match, began moaning about line calls and battled the umpire. So incessant was the 18-year-old's whining, the regal Graf walked to the net at one occasion and told the pouting Hingis: “Please! Play tennis. Let's just play tennis.”

For the record, Steffi won that day in what turned out to be a classic. From that incident on, Hingis was booed by the crowd at Roland Garros and finished the game in tears. But above all that was the moral – play tennis.

Play football.

Zidane did until something snapped. Did Materazzi? In those moments prior, what was uttered, I'm ever curious. I think the world deserves to know, especially before condemnation begins.

I do know that Zidane, despite the white furnace in his belly, is not one who bothers over petty issues. It's been displayed in all aspects of his game. His is a class act, flamboyant yet efficient with few words wasted, even fewer dives. If anything, he wants to be part of a beautiful thing. And then there's that line. That taut line that divides the creator and the destroyer which exists in every genius and which lesser mortals seem intent on exploiting.

I'd like to believe the startling event on Sunday may turn out to be more important than winning the trophy. It was Zidane's destiny to go out with a bang except fate wrote a script nobody could foresee; a morbid contribution to the game few can comprehend now because of its rawness.

I believe it'll set football on overdrive in its continuing quest for the most level of playing fields in order that teamwork and spirit, skill and talent remain the only criteria for winning. Not diving, not playacting, not trash-talking. They have changed the structure of the ball, created new grass hybrids, reinvented footwear, reconfigured stadiums, tweaked the rules – all to promote a fairer game.

It's only a natural step that, given the profile of the Zizou incident, FIFA looks seriously into the emerging disease of on-field misdeeds. Poor and cynical gamesmanship - especially those that go into personal territory - destroys the beautiful game. What triggers a violent act can at times be more repulsive than the act itself, and such behaviour should never be allowed to roost on the field.

So far, only hearsay has emerged about what was actually uttered. This much has been perpetuated about the moments prior – Materazzi called Zidane a terrorist; Materazzi told Zidane to go play for his own country instead. A lot depends on the manner on how the remarks were made.

If any of that had a grain of truth, and if I were in Zidane's shoes big as they were, Materazzi would be without teeth today. But that's just me, a potential disgrace to country and family. Sports journalists may pass all the judgment they want, but the simple message would be: Please! Play football.

Yes, play football. For a man uncomfortable with words, that was Zidane's strange and final message to everyone involved in the game. How fitting, if you ask me.