I'm happy to be corrected on this if I'm wrong, but my understanding has always been that there's no actual basis for the idea that a tackle can't be a foul if the player gets the ball.
The comparison to cricket (which you're obviously not the first to have made, but have lucked out as being the person I've decided to respond to. Congratulations)
is misleading, as the technology used in cricket can either provide a definitive answer or has a known margin of error.
Having the...