In the first ‘Keep The Game Beautiful’ article, we tackle one of many supporters’ most loathed aspects of the game. Diving, play acting, simulation; call it what you like, it’s cheating and it’s spoiling the game.
If you need a reminder of how far this disgraceful habit has progressed in the game, take a look at this video:
It is now so deeply engrained in the game, that even supposedly model professionals are culpable. Michael Owen has admitted that he looks for the opportunity to go down easily when in the box, and Steven Gerrard is often guilty of exaggerating contact in a way which is wholly unacceptable. Very few players can say they have never dived, and it’s terrible to think that players are trying to perfect their technique in order to gain an unfair advantage for their team. This is something Morten Gamst Pedersen obviously hasn’t quite mastered yet …
Unfortunately the situation is not helped by the fact that players go unpunished for their actions by their employers. If a player is sent off for a reckless challenge, managers will throw the book at them and often claim they have lost their team the game. Diving is overlooked however. In the recent game between Arsenal and Chelsea, Wenger even had the cheek to label Didier Drogba a ‘diver’ whilst completely ignoring Emmanuel Adebayor’s own spectacular efforts. The point is that players of Drogba and Adebayor’s stature should not be taking a tumble so easily and if their respective managers do not tell them not to, somebody needs to.
So how do you go about stamping out diving in the game? Refereeing on the issue has improved slightly with an increasing number of yellow cards being handed out for simulation. It is still erratic and inconsistent however and you have to wonder whether a yellow card is enough. For most players who are in the opposition box and encounter the slightest degree of contract (although sometimes even that isn’t required), the risk of a yellow card is more than outweighed but the possibility of gaining a penalty for their side.
It would be interesting to the see the effect of introducing a red card for play acting when the referee is 100% sure that the player has dived. This would certainly make any player reappraise whether gaining a free kick or penalty is worth risk of reducing their side to ten men and incurring a three game ban. If clubs were also imposed a specific financial penalty when players were found guilty of diving, offenders would soon find themselves risking the ire of their managers and the club’s hierarchy. Retrospective punishment using video technology should also be a serious consideration, but this is a topic in itself and one that we will also be covering as part of the campaign.
In summary, diving has no place in football. It’s embarrassing, it’s unfair and it needs to be eradicated by whatever means necessary. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on how to get rid of it and the worst examples of it you have seen.
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Good clips and there are some shocking dives in both videos!
Interesting topic this and one that just last week (in the Rangers and Aberdeen match) resulted in an innocent player being dismissed because the opponent had faked being ‘butted and went down like he’d been shot. Kyle Lafferty the Rnagers player who so blatently went down was subsequently fined by his club which was good to see, but as you rightly point out, the problem is so engrained in the game that it will be very difficult to eliminate.
I’ve never seen a player sent off for diving (I have for a second yellow) but never a straight red, but I think the issue for referee’s is that they often only see one side of the incident and rely on the assistant’s view assuming that he was watching the game.
Enter the video official debate……in the Lafferty incident, the video referee would have been able to have spotted this farce second time, thats probably a second or two, then add another second or two to transmit to the referee that it was a dive and that Lafferty should be booked or even in this case sent off for unsportsman like conduct. For the 5 or 10 seconds aftre the referee has blown his whistle, he can be speaking with the video official…. would it be a huge intringment on the game…. in this case, I dont think so.
Pressed to give a firm answer as to whether we could eliminate it or not from the game, I’d have to go with no, purely because i dont think managers and clubs have the balls to suspend a player for diving.
Jesus what a disgrace! I hate to see diving in any game, by any player. Quite simply, it’s cheating.
I think it’s an issue that really needs to be better addressed by the football associations.
[...]There’s an interesting piece over at The Football Blog (who, I noticed, have kindly linked to An Educated Right Foot) about diving in the game. How, he asks, can we stamp this disgraceful act of cheating out of our beautiful game?[...]