- Sep 2, 2003
- 5,850
- 8,794
Once again this weekend, as every weekend, we have seen cheating by players. The incident that affected us was, of course, the sending off of Wilson Palacios. We saw David Dunn hurling himself to the ground even though he had not been touched by Palacios, thus getting Palacios a second booking and a sending off. Not only did this affect the outcome of the game but, as it was a second yellow card, it cannot be appealed.
I hate cheating. I also hate the general reaction to it in the football world. From the description of it by the authorities (‘simulation’ is far too euphemistic) to the platitudes offered by commentators. We are told that somebody ‘went down easily’ or that he ‘won’ a free kick. Both descriptions give the act of diving legitimacy, when really it merits condemnation.
We also hear dramatic tumbles to earth excused on the grounds that ‘there was contact’. ‘He may have gone down a bit easily’ they say, but ‘there was contact’. So what? Show me any tackle in the history of the game and I’m willing to bet that there was some kind of physical contact between the combatants. Contact doesn’t signify a foul. Contact is an almost inevitable consequence of competing to win possession.
This is also the excuse for a player who, instead of continuing to run, leaves a trailing leg in order to realise the ‘contact’ that results in a free kick. Instead of the ref giving him a yellow card and the world calling him the cheating bastard that he is, the football pundits sympathise with him, even though the only reason for his progress being so rudely interrupted was his own deceitful actions.
I don’t know why these excuses are made. It could be that a commentator does not wish to risk incurring the displeasure of players and managers, thereby endangering his access to his professional life’s blood. It could be that friendships would be put at risk by honest assessment. It could just be that commentators are either too stupid or too frightened (or both) to call a cheat a cheat.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
There is a simple procedure which, if put in place, would make cheating obsolete within a matter of a few weeks. The technology is there, the rules are there. Only the will to do it appears to be missing.
The answer is simple. Review every game for ‘simulation’. Identify every instance of it in every game. Then, retrospectively, award each ‘simulation’ with the correct punishment according to the laws of the game: a yellow card. If a player is dishonest enough to ‘simulate’ more than once, he gets more than one yellow card. If he gets two, it doesn’t translate to a red; it is just two yellows. Three dives, three yellows etc.
So if a player (let’s call him Christiano Ronaldo) dives three times in a game, he gets three yellow cards. If he does it again the next game, he gets three more. This means that after playing two games, he gets a one match ban for accumulating five yellow cards, and is well on his way to his next ban. Now Mr. Ronaldo may not be able to correct the habits of a lifetime overnight, but he would probably receive all kinds of encouragement from his manager, who would doubtless prefer him to be available for selection for every game rather than serving bans for diving for one third of them.
This will never happen of course. If it was proposed as a rule change there would be all manner of reasons put forward against it by vested interests in the game. It would be too cumbersome a system, they would say, which would take too long to review. It would lead to separate criteria for the professional and amateur games, they would say, which would contradict the spirit of the game. The judgements would be subjective, they would say, leading to injustice. It would in itself be unjust, they would say, to impose retrospective punishment.
All of these arguments, and others, are of course bogus. An explicit rule change with clear and obvious criteria to identify dives would mean that players would know what they could not do. As with Mr. Dunn last week, the variety of camera angles usually leave no doubt, but the decision when the footage was contentious could err on the side of the diver.
As I said, there is nothing to stop this from being adopted, except for the will to do so. I guarantee you that if it were implemented at the start of next season then diving would be a thing of the past by Christmas.
Now wouldn’t that be a fantastic Christmas present.
I hate cheating. I also hate the general reaction to it in the football world. From the description of it by the authorities (‘simulation’ is far too euphemistic) to the platitudes offered by commentators. We are told that somebody ‘went down easily’ or that he ‘won’ a free kick. Both descriptions give the act of diving legitimacy, when really it merits condemnation.
We also hear dramatic tumbles to earth excused on the grounds that ‘there was contact’. ‘He may have gone down a bit easily’ they say, but ‘there was contact’. So what? Show me any tackle in the history of the game and I’m willing to bet that there was some kind of physical contact between the combatants. Contact doesn’t signify a foul. Contact is an almost inevitable consequence of competing to win possession.
This is also the excuse for a player who, instead of continuing to run, leaves a trailing leg in order to realise the ‘contact’ that results in a free kick. Instead of the ref giving him a yellow card and the world calling him the cheating bastard that he is, the football pundits sympathise with him, even though the only reason for his progress being so rudely interrupted was his own deceitful actions.
I don’t know why these excuses are made. It could be that a commentator does not wish to risk incurring the displeasure of players and managers, thereby endangering his access to his professional life’s blood. It could be that friendships would be put at risk by honest assessment. It could just be that commentators are either too stupid or too frightened (or both) to call a cheat a cheat.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
There is a simple procedure which, if put in place, would make cheating obsolete within a matter of a few weeks. The technology is there, the rules are there. Only the will to do it appears to be missing.
The answer is simple. Review every game for ‘simulation’. Identify every instance of it in every game. Then, retrospectively, award each ‘simulation’ with the correct punishment according to the laws of the game: a yellow card. If a player is dishonest enough to ‘simulate’ more than once, he gets more than one yellow card. If he gets two, it doesn’t translate to a red; it is just two yellows. Three dives, three yellows etc.
So if a player (let’s call him Christiano Ronaldo) dives three times in a game, he gets three yellow cards. If he does it again the next game, he gets three more. This means that after playing two games, he gets a one match ban for accumulating five yellow cards, and is well on his way to his next ban. Now Mr. Ronaldo may not be able to correct the habits of a lifetime overnight, but he would probably receive all kinds of encouragement from his manager, who would doubtless prefer him to be available for selection for every game rather than serving bans for diving for one third of them.
This will never happen of course. If it was proposed as a rule change there would be all manner of reasons put forward against it by vested interests in the game. It would be too cumbersome a system, they would say, which would take too long to review. It would lead to separate criteria for the professional and amateur games, they would say, which would contradict the spirit of the game. The judgements would be subjective, they would say, leading to injustice. It would in itself be unjust, they would say, to impose retrospective punishment.
All of these arguments, and others, are of course bogus. An explicit rule change with clear and obvious criteria to identify dives would mean that players would know what they could not do. As with Mr. Dunn last week, the variety of camera angles usually leave no doubt, but the decision when the footage was contentious could err on the side of the diver.
As I said, there is nothing to stop this from being adopted, except for the will to do so. I guarantee you that if it were implemented at the start of next season then diving would be a thing of the past by Christmas.
Now wouldn’t that be a fantastic Christmas present.