After watching the matches between Real Madrid and Barcelona, which promised so much but didn’t quite deliver, blighted with theatrics that would make most soapie actors turn away in disgust, fans were left wondering if this was a case of beautiful gamesmanship rather than the beautiful game.
When you look at the incentives on offer to the players and managers, it’s not surprising that they behave the way they do. Because of the low scoring nature of football, the awarding of a penalty or free kick in an attacking position is very valuable.
If you can get a player booked and/or waste time if you are in front, it’s an even bigger bonus.
Therefore, whilst fans might deplore players diving or ensuring contact is made (which doesn’t seem to be related to which part of the body is clutched in agony afterwards), the players are in fact making quite a rational decision.
You will never totally eliminate diving for penalties as long as football is such a low scoring game. Retrospective punishment, as introduced by the A-League, also has its drawbacks. It is very difficult to have unambiguous evidence in all situations. A judiciary type system can lead to inconsistent decisions.
Incidents should be dealt with on the pitch except in extraordinary circumstances such as violent acts missed by the officials.
So what can be done to improve the situation?
Firstly, there are three criteria which need to be satisfied when looking at rule changes:
1. Keep it simple;
2. There is no such thing as a free lunch; and
3. Incentives matter.
The first is perhaps the most important. The simplicity of football is one of its great attractions.
Apart from the offside rule, football is an exceptionally easy game to explain to anyone unfamiliar with it.
Any rule change that dramatically increases the complexity of football threatens to undermine one of the foundations that has led to its global popularity.
I’ve taken the second and third criteria from a couple of statements that have been used to explain a great deal of economic behaviour. Basically they refer to the need to assess the cost involved in any action as well as what incentives are on offer as a result of a change.
The solution?
Change the way time is kept during the game.
Stop the clock when the ball is out of play, or play has stopped for a foul or corner.
This change won’t add complexity to the game and the costs are low.
As mentioned above, as long as penalties exist, teams will try their luck to get one. By changing the way time is kept, some of the incentives of a player going down are removed.
Combined with extra attention and punishment for diving, stopping the clock means that a player can writhe around in agony on the ground trying to milk a decision in their teams favour, but the amount of time left on the clock will be exactly the same as it was when they hit the turf.
Also, by having a dedicated timekeeping official, we will actually get 90 minutes of play and hopefully eliminate whinging from managers about the amount of extra time played.
Strong athletes will be still be falling over whenever there is a stiff breeze blowing and some referees will reward their efforts, but by making this change, the attractiveness of these actions is reduced and hopefully so to the number of players doing them.
I’ll finish with a quote from Shakespeare’s play Richard II which I think is particularly apt.
“I wasted time and now doth time waste me.”
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