Appeal: An earnest or urgent request, entreaty, or supplication to an higher authority.

Pedantically speaking that's how one of the acts integral to Cricket is defined as. Cricket without its appeals is like a Q 'n' A session without questions. In Football, to the best of The Outsider's knowledge, appeals don't play as important a role. On a related note, the now rarely seen act of 'walking' without awaiting an appeal to the umpire for a decision is an act of sporting probity unique to Cricket. The act of 'walking' in Cricket is akin to Diego Maradona going up to the referee and asking him to repeal a goal because 'God' handled the ball. It's not going to happen in Football. At least, The Outsider hasn't been witness to it. Ever. But The Outsider has seen many an instance of cricket players walking without waiting for the umpire's decision. Perhaps this is why Cricket is known as the Gentleman's game. And not Football.

On second thoughts, maybe 'walking' is not as generous an act as saying 'No, thank you' to a 'wrongly scored' goal. After all, goals in Football are things we don't see as much of as the fall of wickets in Cricket. (See, that's why we find Cricket so much more interesting. It presents its fans with so many more opportunities to cheer or jeer, depending on which side one is supporting.) That said, The Outsider has no doubt Football is less likely to see a player paying as much attention to his conscience as a cricketer might. The past might have something to do with it.   

Historically, Football has tended to be a pastime of the proletariat. The rules of the game reflect this reality. Football has fewer dos and don'ts that one needs to be in the know of to comprehend it. Even the equipment required to play, an able body and a spherical object, are in keeping with the KISS principle of thinking. Or unthinking. Football is a wage-earning man's game with few holds-barred. Cricket is not like that. It started out as a sport for cultivated folk, the higher classes, elitists and the like who believed it made perfect sense to play an outdoor sport in pristine white clothing. Much like Tennis, which still is, Cricket started out as a rich gentleman's sport. And the sophisticated tend to like their rules.

Rules are designed to protect the affluent. They shelter them from being assaulted by the savages they're forced to live in the midst of. It's why rich folk derive much pleasure in making things complex. Complexity grants them the joys of exclusivity. This is not to say the prosperous don't bend the rules. But that's besides the point. What mattered to the people who took up Cricket was to studiously convey the impression that it is a sport made for the well-mannered, civilized enough to follow conventions that people who get their hands dirty with contact sports like Football don't possess the mentality for. Conclusion: Cricket is for the classy and Football for the asses.

To a large extent, the Cricket world has worked hard to adhere to this urbane image of itself. (Which probably explains why the rise and rise of India is viewed by the International Cricket Council, and the English in particular, with such disdain.) Even in this day and age of extreme competition, big money and crass Indian hegemony, few players violently dispute a decision handed down by the umpires and more than a few 'walk' without waiting to be sent on their way. It's fair to say that Cricket is a sport in which vehemently questioning authority is just not on. Or, to borrow a cliché from Cricket, just not cricket. The Outsider waits for the day when one might say the same about Football. Then again, maybe not. That's just not Football.