Diving or 'cheating' has to stop

[Fox1norfolk]

Diving ’cheating’ in football has now become an embarrassment and unfortunately it has become the norm.

 

Years ago when there was a heavy tackle in the penalty area a penalty kick was awarded. Today its clearly the intention of many teams to ‘win’ a penalty and the skillset players employ is that the slightest contact with the opposition they will collapse screaming as thought they have been shot by a sniper. Several players including Kane, Sane have openly admitted that if they feel the slightest contact they will go to ground and win a penalty, to my mind this is blatant cheating and does not belong to our national game.

 

The big issue is how do you stop it? With the advantage of VAR this is a route to explore. The guidelines for referees should be changed to stop the cheats for example if the VAR show a definite heavy challenge, then obviously the penalty should be awarded. However, if we use last nights two incidents where Martial dived flat on his face after what appeared to be no contact and the same applies to the David Luis incident, then alternative action should be taken. If VAR shows there was the slightest contact but no enough to send a player rolling in ’agony’ on the ground, then a red card should have been shown to the cheats and banned for at least one match.

 

Returning to the Martial penalty at that point Man U were leading by 6 goals against 10 men so you have to question what sort of mindset players like Martial have to act that way?

 

Diving has become embarrassing almost in panto land some of the chief culprits are obviously going to RADA. I feel some form of national protest about changing the guidelines for referees to the Premier League or FIFA is urgently required.

 

I would be interested if other people feel the same and possibly suggest a way forward.

[spacemunky]

It's just become an embarrassment? 

 

All the people I know, who aren't fans of the sport, think this is all that ever happens in it 

[steveherbe]

Totally agree with the OP, it is an embarrassment and is turning me away from the game. Unfortunately, the TV pundits seem to encourage this kind of cheating,  for example advocating fouls that stop the opposition - they call it taking one for the team, I call it blatant cheating. I'd love to hear Jenas or Keown just come out and say "XXX player dived, he is a cheat". But I'm not holding my breath, as they and others seem to find it completely acceptable.

[davieG]

16 hours ago, Fox1norfolk said:

Diving ’cheating’ in football has now become an embarrassment and unfortunately it has become the norm.

 

Years ago when there was a heavy tackle in the penalty area a penalty kick was awarded. Today its clearly the intention of many teams to ‘win’ a penalty and the skillset players employ is that the slightest contact with the opposition they will collapse screaming as thought they have been shot by a sniper. Several players including Kane, Sane have openly admitted that if they feel the slightest contact they will go to ground and win a penalty, to my mind this is blatant cheating and does not belong to our national game.

 

The big issue is how do you stop it? With the advantage of VAR this is a route to explore. The guidelines for referees should be changed to stop the cheats for example if the VAR show a definite heavy challenge, then obviously the penalty should be awarded. However, if we use last nights two incidents where Martial dived flat on his face after what appeared to be no contact and the same applies to the David Luis incident, then alternative action should be taken. If VAR shows there was the slightest contact but no enough to send a player rolling in ’agony’ on the ground, then a red card should have been shown to the cheats and banned for at least one match.

 

Returning to the Martial penalty at that point Man U were leading by 6 goals against 10 men so you have to question what sort of mindset players like Martial have to act that way?

 

Diving has become embarrassing almost in panto land some of the chief culprits are obviously going to RADA. I feel some form of national protest about changing the guidelines for referees to the Premier League or FIFA is urgently required.

 

I would be interested if other people feel the same and possibly suggest a way forward.

One's like the Luis penalty are hard to judge, I'd like to think most are unintentional but everyone knows if you clip someone's heel and I've had it done to me when they're in full flight then they'll go down. Notice also Luis didn't protest he accepted it straight away. He may not have meant it, who knows but a foul these days does not need to be intentional.

 

There in lies the difficulty of determining whether these are real fouls or not. Sure there are some seemingly obvious ones but there are plenty that are very debatable I suspect we'd end up with the opposite debate with plenty being questioned as to 'how is that not a penalty?'

[Babylon]

19 minutes ago, davieG said:

One's like the Luis penalty are hard to judge, I'd like to think most are unintentional but everyone knows if you clip someone's heel and I've had it done to me when they're in full flight then they'll go down. Notice also Luis didn't protest he accepted it straight away. He may not have meant it, who knows but a foul these days does not need to be intentional.

 

There in lies the difficulty of determining whether these are real fouls or not. Sure there are some seemingly obvious ones but there are plenty that are very debatable I suspect we'd end up with the opposite debate with plenty being questioned as to 'how is that not a penalty?'

The most ridiculous thing about the Luis one is the sending off. Under the current rules, what was quite feasibly an accident gets punished twice with a penalty and a sending off. Yet if he'd tried to tackle him and brought him down, the double jeopardy rule would have come in and he'd have got a yellow. 

[davieG]

4 minutes ago, Babylon said:

The most ridiculous thing about the Luis one is the sending off. Under the current rules, what was quite feasibly an accident gets punished twice with a penalty and a sending off. Yet if he'd tried to tackle him and brought him down, the double jeopardy rule would have come in and he'd have got a yellow. 

Aye. It's stupid as so many of the Laws are now. As I've often said it seems like every time they try to simplify and clarify a Law they end up making it more complex and evermore subjective. It took 150 years to develop those laws and they where fine for decades and now they're being changed even during s season.

 

Sure the game has changed it's faster and there's more concern about the safety of players but all these knee jerk changes are making it worse.

[RonnieTodger]

There's nothing to discourage them from doing it either. If a penalty gets overturned for a dive, they don't even get a yellow card.