No diving please

WTTGT Writer: Christopher Czapski

I feel football is similar to my community pool. There is a no diving sign in the shallow end but I still see children diving whenever the lifeguard has his back turned. Even when there’s a good lifeguard on duty that catches the kids diving, all he does is shake his finger at them and gives them a verbal warning saying, “Hey! Cut that out. No more diving.”

If the governing football associations want to erase diving from football they need to punish those players that dive. Handing out a yellow card to the player that dives is not a punishment; it’s a slap on the wrist. It’s pathetic to expect players not to dive when the worst consequence is a yellow card and a major benefit is possibly a penalty kick, or at worst a goal scoring opportunity.

Football players need more severe consequences for diving even if the ref doesn’t catch it during the run of play. For example, in 2009 when Eduardo dived against Celtic during a UEFA Champions League Qualifier. A one-match ban was handed to Eduardo after video evidence proved he clearly flopped in the penalty box. Unfortunately [for football] this ban was retracted because UEFA couldn’t review matches and hand out bans when a referee failed to punish a player during play for diving.

Why not? This is exactly what FIFA, UEFA, the FA or any other governing football organisation needs to do in order to erase this cheating. Slapping a player that dives with a one-match suspension, followed by a fine, and then making it public would add insult to injury. While also creating a consequence that outweighs the reward for diving. 

I’m sorry, but after witnessing Fernando Torres flop and the ref to subsequently hand a red card out to the Chilean defender, or Kaka receiving a red card for a player running into him during the World Cup last summer, I’ve just had it.

I’m fed up with players diving and hitting the ground like they were auditioning for the lead role in Hamlet. It’s a disgrace to the beautiful game and casts a pathetic shadow over it. It’s unfortunate the world’s favorite past time has come to this but how many more World Cups or titanic clashes will end up being ruined by diving players. What will it take for FIFA or any other governing football body to take action?