SO right there Marcus when I trained as referee late 90's at a Referess Association training session a respected professional league ref (can't recall his name) said that players are out to con you all the time often under instruction from the manager. Diving is an art form but needs to be stopped by referees using common sense and being strong and consistent. I feel its a dead duck as they are highly paid and money leads to further corruption. Refereeing quality has not improved since they were salaried at over £65,000 pa - appalling imo Edit typo
i know,i know ,here we go again ,,,how many of the 60s,70s 80s players do you remember acting like this .
Regardless of how this initial experiment turns out I'm glad that the powers that be are wanting it eradicated from the game. A lot of people have already accepted it as a relatively legit part of the game but I don't like that idea.
Most honest people want it wiping out but once "foreign" players showed us how to gain the greatest advantage by this sort of thing from the '60s onwards then it became a case of "if you can't beat them............". Oddly enough I found the Germans about the highest on the list of offenders. IMO in more recent times Klinsmann, Ginola and Van Nistelrooy were masters at it.
I think these days it'd be a lot easier to make a list of players who don't dive like experts than ones who do. They should look at the ones who fake injuries too like Huth says, there needs to be a shift in attitudes for it to work and diving isn't the only nonsense these guys try to pull.
One of my biggest gripes in football is the "injured players" thing. The rule is if the trainer comes on you have to go off. Why not make it if the play has to be stopped then you go off. Regardless of the trainer. Stop the feigning injury. And stop players staying down to stop a break away. Hate it with a passion
Or the feigned head injury - automatic game stopper in case it is genuine. Would soon stop them if all head injuries came with an automatic 15 minute time.
