~#/ BREAKING NEWS - feathers are stronger than Ronaldo /#~ (Football in General)

Name: blue_ashleigh

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Product:	Football in General
Date:	13/09/07 (86 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: My suggestion for stopping diving

Disadvantages: some teams may be relegated as they never have players on the pitch

A pet hate of mine is watching "macho" footballers get "seriously injured" and pushed to the floor by a small gust of wind. This is a little rant and my solution to combat these silly amateur dramatics.

Diving (or simulation) - where a player feigns injury/ tackle to gain an advantage, generally a free kick or penalty.

It's rare you watch a football game where one of the players doesn't collapse on the floor feigning some sort of injury. I think one of my favourite "injuries" was where Reina tackled Gudjohnsen which resulted in the referee coming over, then Robben said something to Reina which led Reina to turn and lightly push Robben in the face - this resulted in Robben dramatically falling to the floor clutching in his face. You'd think he'd just had his neck broken by the way he was acting.

Some footballers also appear to leap metres into the air before crashing to the ground in agony from some mysterious force. Nothing touched them, yet still they're in pain... strange!

So, how do we combat this problem?

Obvisouly sending players off for diving could perhaps reduce the amount of diving - but there still lies the problem of how you tell whether it was a dive or not.

Referees can't see every tackle close enough to be able to determine whether it was a genuine tackle, or a dramatic dive. It's a tough call which can lead to either team winning the game. Especially if the foul/ dive leads to a penalty. Relying on the decision of the referee and/or linesmen cannot always lead to the right decision.

Perhaps video replay could be introduced to combat the problem. Just like in rugby, if the parts of the game could be rewound on a TV then fouls/dives could be examined and a better verdict reached. This still relies on people judging what is or isn't a dive. Though it is a better solution than just replying on the referees decsions.

My suggestion is less to do with spotting whether something is or isn't a dive, but how to stop players diving in the first place. I think players who claim to have been injured by a foul tackle should have to sit off the pitch for 5mins - in a sort of blood bin. It may not seem like much but if players knew they would have to miss 1/18th of the game if they are "injured" while play carries on, I think they would be much less inclined to fake injury. 5 minutes in a 90 minute game is quite a sizeable chunk of time.

My idea is:
- if a player goes down and is in apparent pain, they should sit off the pitch in a dedicated area to receive medical treatment
- This treatment can be to asses the pain/ treat the pain/ just to rest the injured area
- This 'recovery time' should last no less than 5 minutes
- During this recovery time the player cannot be substituted for another player, and the team will have to play with one man less for this time.
- After 5 minutes the player can either be subbed for another player, or can return to play

There may be a slight problem in that Man U would often be playing only with 10 men as Ronaldo would constantly be sat off the pitch, and Chelsea may not have any men on the pitch as they are all sat off "injured". However, it would mean Chelsea are relegated as they lose every game, and that Ronaldo will no longer play football... no bad thing :)

It's not a fool proof plan, but I think it would significantly reduce the amount of people diving. If you really are seriously injured, as you would presume from the rolling around on the floor clutching different body parts, then five minutes sat on the side receiving medical treatment would surely be a good idea. If you are feigning injury then you're going to feel like a bit of a moron while your team is at a disadvantage as they're a man down.

This idea would lessen the tough decision of was he faking/ wasn't he. It would also mean that more football is played rather than watching someone rolling round on the floor from a strong gust of wind. It won't cure the problem of diving but it may encourage less players to do so.

This is what I thought would be a fairly simple way of stopping diving. When I suggested this idea to my friends (who are typically male die hard football fans) they thought it was quite a good idea. SO I thought I'd write this little piece and see what you lot think. How would you tackle the problem of diving? Anyone in the FA want to use this idea!? Diving annoys me...

Rant over!

Summary: :)