How to stop diving in football

 
dasilva Roar Guru

By dasilva, 22 Nov 2009 dasilva is a Roar Guru

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When people think of diving, they automatically cringe at the thought. Usually the word cheat starts getting branded and the people who are divers are automatically crucified.

However, looking at diving in a cold dispassionate way will reveal that diving is only considered a yellow card offense. This puts diving on par with time wasting, a miss-timed challenge, swearing and taking off your shirt while celebrating a goal. It’s also considered a more minor offense then denying a goal scoring opportunity, handball to prevent the ball going into your own goal and a reckless tackle.

On a theoretical level, Rhys Williams was a bigger cheater with his red card offense during the Oman game than the likes of Ngog who dived for a penalty for Liverpool. Now do I believe that is the case? Of course not, however, until diving becomes a red card offense, all the talk about the evils of diving is a moot point.

Nations from different cultural backgrounds can logically state that diving is just a misdemeanour as the rules of the game clearly states. That it is a no bigger sin than a miss-timed challenge, and all the outrage is misguided.

With the introduction of post-match reviews of diving in the A-League, what we get is this ridiculous situation where if the referee does his job and detects a person diving, they will get a yellow card. However, if the referee misses the incident, the video review will suspend the player for two weeks. It’s a pretty bizarre situation where a yellow card offense is worth a two week suspension.

So the first step FIFA has to make is to ensure that diving is a red card. To me this is logical as I believe diving inside a box is an appropriate counterpart of current laws where an unfair denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity is considered a red card offense.

Therefore the unfair creation of an obvious goal scoring opportunity should also be considered a red card offense. Also, diving is the attacking player equivalent of a reckless tackle which is considered a red card. Therefore turning diving into a red card will correct the imbalance between unsporting conduct by the defender and the attacker.

Second step that FIFA should make is to introduce video referees in games. Now I know this is controversial and there will be people who will argue against that, saying that football is a free flowing game and introducing video referees will impede with that nature. However, those people are ignoring the natural break in flow during the game that video referees can take advantage of.

The first natural break in flow are goals, which can be checked for offside and fouls by video referees (which will prevent incidence like the hand of Henry). The second natural break in flow are fouls in particular free kicks and penalties. It takes time to set up a penalty and it takes time to set up a free kick.

During this period of time, there is ample time for the video referee to check whether the penalty/free kick is justified and if there is any diving, the player can get sent off. If the penalty decision is rescinded, it will be considered a goal kick or a foul if there is diving to the opposition.

If we still worry about video referees taking too long to make a decision and interrupting the flow of the game, simply put a time limit of 90 seconds for the video referee to make a decision. Therefore unclear incidence or 50:50 scenarios where the decision could go either way, will be given the benefit of the doubt to the attacking side whilst clear cut and obvious dives can be picked up.

The only problem I can foresee is that referees may be too quick to blow for a penalty knowing that there is a video referee who will pick up any mistakes. However, as long as the referee applies some common sense and is instructed to adjudicate as before and treat this as an extra help rather then something to rely on, this will become a non-issue.

If this is implemented, the incidence of diving will plummet in professional football. Although exaggeration of contact may still be present, I believe that diving with no contact will be virtually eliminated if these changes are put in place and that can only be a good thing for the game.

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