I think that all sports have a degree of "cheating" which manifests itself in a variety of ways. Whilst football is without doubt the most pathetic, childish kind of cheating (which now requires a referee to spray a line on a pitch which the players are still incapable of standing behind), I'm sure that you'd be able to think of things for other sports...
Formula 1 for example - the chief engineer's way of gaining the most success is to find as many loopholes in the rules as they possibly can in order to gain an advantage. Add to that the constant bitching whilst on the team radio (now that they're not allowed to harass the race director).
In Cricket, the "cheating" is verbal (sledging) and ball tampering. The England players trying to "circumvent" this by rubbing it on a bald player's sweaty head.
When I played rugby when I was younger, you'd get poked and grabbed (particularly in the scrum) but it was a case of "giving what you got" because you knew it would be coming and you just had to hope that you were tougher than the other guy.
So I'm in total agreement that something needs to change in football because it's pathetic and annoying, other sports just have a different "brand of cheating"... but when the officials are so incompetent and there's such a total lack of respect towards them, there needs to be a fundamental shift in approach which they're either incapable of or unwilling to do. E.g. The introduction of a referee microphone could significantly change the abuse that they receive but the authorities are shit scared of what will certainly get picked up. The introduction of an "in-play" clock so they don't take 2 minutes to throw the ball back on. So many examples.
I have noticed this frequently in football / soccer. The way in which the players mob up on the official in such an intimidating way... i don't think that would be tolerated in really any other sport.
I think you're right - I've only ever seen it happen in football (/soccer) and maybe once or twice in WWE / WWF 🙂