Use cameras to finger divers
Tue Aug 18 04:19PM
Rugby has really shown football the way in terms of bad behaviour over the last six months or so.
The Bath drugs scandal, Schalk Burger gouging furore and now the 'bloodgate' fake injury affair has made football seem a bit tame by comparison.
To recap, Harlequins engineered a 'blood injury' substitution in their Heineken Cup game against Leinster by getting Tom Williams to bite a packet of fake claret, making it look like he had a cut mouth.
Williams's sly wink to the bench, in conjunction with the gore looking like something out of a pathetic 1960s vampire B-movie, meant Harlequins were caught.
The powers that be came down like a tonne of bricks on Richards, banning him for three years, while Williams received a four month ban.
Even after a decision that may well have ended his coaching career, Richards managed to be admirably phlegmatic about the incident, saying merely that: "It didn't pan out particularly well on the day."
It's a bit like Mike Ashley saying his time as Newcastle owner has been "no better than adequate".
ED has prattled on in the past about rugby's moral double standards - it's (more or less) OK to dig your fingers into an opponent's eye sockets as long as you buy him a pint afterwards, but chomping on a ketchup sachet is strictly taboo.
Yet every sport has things it chooses to care about, and football is no better at deciding its priorities - such as the best use for video technology.
In football, as in rugby, it has been decided that feigning injury to gain an advantage is cheating and must not be tolerated.
Football had its own 'bloodgate' equivalent in 1989, when Chile goalkeeper Roberto Rojas used a razor to cut himself and get a match against Brazil called off.
He was caught and banned for life, while his country was thrown out of the 1994 World Cup.
Some pretty heavy-hitting punishments, yet it seems you can cheat with impunity as long as you don't bring a prop on to the pitch with you.
Despite constantly coming under the spotlight, diving is no closer to being eliminated from the game than Joey Barton is to getting a PhD in astrophysics.
There is an obvious solution - watch a TV replay, determine that a player has dived, ban him.
Think Morten Gamst Pedersen's comedic tumble against Arsenal last season. It would take no more than five minutes for a disciplinary panel to decide he cheated and dole out the appropriate punishment.
Yet for some reason football is not interested. It would rather get itself in a lather about goal-line cameras.
Crystal Palace's goal that never was against Bristol City created all sorts of headlines, but such incidents are incredibly rare.
In his latest blog for Eurosport-Yahoo!, Danny Murphy argues convincingly in favour of goal-line technology, but then admits that he, in all his 500-plus games as a professional, has never encountered that kind of situation.
How many times do these goal-line controversies occur? Two or three times a season, maximum.
How often does a player win a free-kick or a penalty with a dive, or go down nursing an imaginary injury to run down the clock? In most games.
Goal-line technology is fine, but its introduction would affect only a tiny percentage of results. If the FA used its crack video replay team to look at diving, the entire game would be changed for the better.
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From fbf.forever on Tue Aug 18 04:27PMzzz
From enzo746.jian on Tue Aug 18 04:28PMchildish but mildly satisfying lol
From fbf.forever on Tue Aug 18 04:29PMI still remember when Southampton used to play at The Dell, the nets were so close to the advertising boards behind the goal that the ball would bounce back out sometimes. I think it was Jordi Cruyff who got cheated out of the goal but nobody cared coz it was Man POO.
From jay8my on Tue Aug 18 04:34PMWOW... Danny Murphy needs to read this argument!!! If I was a judge, i guess ED wins hands down!!! How come no one is arguing to have both goal line technology and cameras judging if players are faking injuries???
From yawboakye86 on Tue Aug 18 04:34PMGood blog, agreed.
From meiling_bedard on Tue Aug 18 04:35PMagreed ED. we've being saying it for yrs now but them fifa/uefa muppets dont wanna listen. use video to give 3-match bans for divers
From bobo.spamble on Tue Aug 18 04:40PMMAybe Danny Murphy (DM from now) needs to read ED from this afternoon. I absolutely loved it! I thought DM's argument was excellent but then i read ED's and realised, hey, itz all part of the fun, as unjust as it might seem! Remember that fanthom goal last season involving that 26yr old ref?(cant remember the teams; cant be bothered to check!)
and that goal of Liverpool against Chelsea in the CL semis in (which year was that one? they've played so many times in the semis i cant remember[2005 or 2007])
It made for nice comments from Mourinho and, hey, the world's moved on from then, Obama is president, Man Utd has won 3 straight titles, Newcastle is in the Championship, Ronaldo got his 'dream' move, Michael Jackson is dead; and the world moves on!! COOLFrom yawboakye86 on Tue Aug 18 04:45PMStarting a campaign to ban diving when Ronaldo has left for Madrid is a little like closing the doors after the showjumping pony has bolted
From toplfcfan on Tue Aug 18 04:47PMlooool the picture is sooo fitting
From double_t_uk2002 on Tue Aug 18 04:49PMlol so true.. divers = cheaters
From eurosportcommentator on Tue Aug 18 04:56PMNo wonder people think rugby is rougher than NFL!
(bait set...)
From otsep2000 on Tue Aug 18 04:58PMThe example of Pederson's "dive" is exactly the reason why you can't view video footage to dish out a punishment. You have to take in to consideration the intent, an appeal made by the player at the time, etc.
In the mentioned incident, Pederson seemed to trip himself with no one around and then to cover for the sheer embarassment, he tried to mask it with an appeal to the ref and an estranged look on his face. He wasn't actually diving! What about the other foot, where a player is fouled and doesn't get anything for it i.e. Berbatov got a real good stamping on against birmingham when Carr flew in, missed the ball and stood on Berba's foot, sending him sprawling. But the ball got caught up in his feet as he fell and he managed to get up still in control of the ball and the ref gave nothing. It was blatant penalty and could have affected the game if the Blues had equalised. But nothing was given and nothing was made of the incident. Also, players who do try to stay on their feet after a challenge but lose their balance a few steps later do not seem to get the fouls given to them whereas players that fall on the spot with a bit of dramatics tend to get the decisions! Surely, thats a reffing issue.From shujaahmad2004 on Tue Aug 18 05:01PMThe example of Pederson's "dive" is exactly the reason why you can't view video footage to dish out a punishment. You have to take in to consideration the intent, an appeal made by the player at the time, etc.
In the mentioned incident, Pederson seemed to trip himself with no one around and then to cover for the sheer embarassment, he tried to mask it with an appeal to the ref and an estranged look on his face. He wasn't actually diving! What about the other foot, where a player is fouled and doesn't get anything for it i.e. Berbatov got a real good stamping on against birmingham when Carr flew in, missed the ball and stood on Berba's foot, sending him sprawling. But the ball got caught up in his feet as he fell and he managed to get up still in control of the ball and the ref gave nothing. It was blatant penalty and could have affected the game if the Blues had equalised. But nothing was given and nothing was made of the incident. Also, players who do try to stay on their feet after a challenge but lose their balance a few steps later do not seem to get the fouls given to them whereas players that fall on the spot with a bit of dramatics tend to get the decisions! Surely, thats a reffing issue.From shujaahmad2004 on Tue Aug 18 05:01PMExcellent article.
The one that gets me, becides the diving, is the rolling around holding an imaginary head injury prompting the ref to stop the game.
Anyone who does this deserves a red. Also trying to have opposing players booked for nothing.
Lets stop the game and use video replays. It is becoming crazy now.
From keyjor on Tue Aug 18 05:03PMED - Totally agree on your use of a TV replay to punish divers, but why not look at goal incidents like the Crystal Palace one, see that it was, indeed a goal, then change the result of the game to 1 - 1 ???
From stevebrown793 on Tue Aug 18 05:31PMtarget divers what has Tom Daley ever done to you?
From liamhorne007 on Tue Aug 18 05:35PMi here they have got a diving board at chelskis training ground specialy built for ballack and drogba.
From m.fowler771 on Tue Aug 18 05:44PMThe diving, simulation and injury theatrics are tarnishing the game. Fines and bans will reduce the number of occurences but, unfortunately, will not eliminate them altogether. Sportmanship means nothing anymore. It's all about winning and maximizing points. It would appear that public humiliation may be the only way to put an end to the cheating. Many of these footballers have massive egos and can ill afford to have a negative public opinion of themselves. No progress will be made until we find a way to publicize their dishonesty by repeatedly showing video footage of their actions. All we have done so far is sit back and complain, which has resulted in nothing. If you want to change their behavior, become proactive. Get the media on board. Keep each and every cheating incident fresh in people's minds game to game, year to year. Take a pink card to the game and brandish it toward the cheater that visits your club's park. Do whatever it takes.
From dbawebster on Tue Aug 18 05:48PMReally bored of the whole debate now, it's going to happen eventually so why not just do it? Even trial it for a while in the championship?
From lawrence.kavanagh on Tue Aug 18 05:54PMThere are, as with many things, ups and downs to this. Where video replay technology will help determine whether this or that happened and indeed ensure that the proper results are achieved, which I would love to see for the fact there are so many diving cheaters in the league (don’t just single out the Ronaldo types, there are many home grown cheaters, those like Michael Carrick tend to dabble with a bit of diving but the worst of all is a certain Mr. Gerrard and they never gain a reputation because of the bias shown towards them because they are English players)
However, having to stop the game and go to video referees to determine the decision will slow the game down considerably, which no fan of the sport wants, let us not forget the Rugby world cup and ‘the try that never was’ and how long everyone had to wait just for a decision that in most people’s eyes was wrong anyway, at the end of the day, it can create proper results but ruins the game’s flow which is important for all fans.
From graham.keywood on Tue Aug 18 05:58PMWhy all the fuss about 'did the ball go over the line'? Goals are wrongly disallowed far more often for offside or breathing on the goalkeeper in an arial challenge. Refs will always get on the spot decisions wrong. You can't blame them for that. Far better to concentrate on something like the blatant cheating of diving and feighning injury. There's no doubt it would decrease if players were handed 3 match bans every time they got found out. refs could help during the game too by giving fouls even if the player doesn't hit the deck. Shirt pulls, taps on the heels etc are fouls, but players feel they need to throw temselves to the ground otherwise the ref will wave it away.
From danpulham on Tue Aug 18 06:29PMin Austrailias -A-League (were Robbie fowler went for his last paycheck) They have decided that they will ban players after matches if video evidence shows they dived. no one has to report them. they just have a panel who watch all the game over a weekend and they just go"thats a dive -two game ban for him." If it works i can see the rest of the world (except south america0 picking it up pretty quickly.
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From daanjohnson on Tue Aug 18 07:06PMwhile missed goals may only happen 2 or 3 times a season, if those lost points are the difference in a team being relegated or staying up then isn't this 1990's technology worth using? when was the last game played where no-one had a pop about refereeing errors and since 9/10 of the time the play is stopped anyway after such incidents isn't it worth installing a system that most sports had installed over a decade ago???
From rginters on Tue Aug 18 07:10PMDroga, Gerrard, Torres, Ronaldo would all be fu........
From loafer_11 on Tue Aug 18 07:20PMChelsea fan...and even though Mikel Obi's dive helped us win the game against Hull, I feel like this would be a step in the right direction. It even aggravates me when people go down way too easily.
Even just the thought of getting banned for diving would be good to have in the player's minds. Maybe they'd do it less...even if no one ever got banned for diving. Would probably be a lot more appeals and such...would be fun to argue about whether someone's foot actually touch another player's legs.
From absentdark on Tue Aug 18 07:31PMIn Bristol they have been using cameras to catch drivers for a long time now and a good job as some of the speeds that the young hooligans reach round here are shocking!! Keep up the good work and lets hope the rest of the country catches up soon!!!
From r.vaux on Tue Aug 18 07:32PMI WAD LAV TAY FANGAR A DIVAR. ESPECIALLAY A WEMON WAN.
From donneymcclain on Tue Aug 18 09:25PMIts a good idea, but im torn. It might actually make soccer watchable, and that would be a pain in the hole.
From poolioinglesias on Tue Aug 18 09:31PM
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