I think football must stand alone as a sport.</p> As football fans we know that certain players cheat - in fact, we see it all the time. I'm talking about those who are dirty and frequently fowl, but also those who 'simulate' and dive and con the referee. </p> We can also point to examples where offsides aren't given, penalties are given wrongly and goals ruled out that were over the line, and goals given that weren't.</p> How does this go on? Am I the only football fan who is totally frustrated with this situation? The thing is - we have a world governing body worth, what must be billions. Overseeing billions of revenue. We have proven technology that could sort these situations out in split seconds. We have the ability to look over matches in hindsight and hit cheaters with punishments. Why do we accept that the kind of football that Maradona brought into thelimelight (if you can get away with scoring with your hand - do it)? Why is this acceptable?</p> Thegreatest shame of itall is that you get players like Ronaldo - at thevery top of the game - possibly the most skillful player in the world at the moment - andwe all turn a blindeye to the cheatinghe is responsible for week in week out. </p> What the game needs now is a majorseachange in attitude. The FA and FIFA could cut this **** out - or at least they could do a lot more. They could impose serious fines on professional footballs and the money could go to charities. Footballers should have to apologise publicly for their misconduct. We can all think of examples where this would have been more than appropriate and yet never happened. At the moment football is an amoral free for all, awash with ridiculous sums ofmoney andvery few checks or balances on the whole sorrysituation. Ruining the game.</p> </p>
I think that the punishment should be as was said on "You're on Sky Sports" or was it the Jimmy Hill prog. For first dive - banned for 5 matches and an additional 5 for every further dive. That would stop it, but then again would Man. U and Chelsea players "dive" (according to the ref) a lot less than other teams. We could do with more refs who have been involved in the game.
The thing with handing bans out for diving is that there is often differing opinion. A good example is the Ronaldo penalty against Middlesbrough on Monday. Half the country think it was a dive and the other half think it was a penalty. The 'experts' in the studio are often split in their opinion. Who is gonna say whether something is a dive or not. Agree that some are nailed on and retrospective action would be good but we need to be very careful. Another way to look at it is that football is the most talked about subject in the country and if we start to sanitise it it would take some of that away.
There are half and half situations where it is 'Did he dive? Didn't he dive?'.</p> There are some situations where you have reasonable grounds to suspect that the player dived.</p> There are some situations where you have reasonable grounds to believe that the player dived.</p> There are some situations where you can prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the player dived.</p> Forme, anything above 'reasonable grounds to believe' should be penalised. </p> As for having something to talk about - I'd rathertalk about what happened in the game, not whether or not someone cheated. It is bad for the sport when the talking points are focused on thecheaters. It's not so much about sanitising thegame - it's about letting the football become the subject matter, not the money and the cheating.</p> I'd love it if divingautomatically lead to a ban and a fine. Players would just have to give it up and it would give credibility back to the game. </p> </p>
