What is a foul and what isn't a foul in football or when is a dive a dive!!!

Was at yesterday's NUFC V Arsenal match and no sooner does the football season start then we are all arguing about footballers diving, cheating, going down too easily etc.

For one I hate cheats on a football pitch regardless of the colour of the strip they are wearing. I also get very annoyed when ex-professional players a la Alan Shearer and Co on MoTD implicitly support the "cheats" by their wierd intrepretation of the laws of the game by arguing if there is contact and a player goes down then it is a foul. It is not.

Law 12 of the Laws of the Game sets out when a free kick ( direct or indirect ) or a penalty should be given. For easy reference i have set it out below.

"Fouls and misconduct are penalised as follows:
Direct free kick
A direct free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a player commits any
of the following seven offences in a manner considered by the referee to be
careless, reckless or using excessive force:
• kicks or attempts to kick an opponent
• trips or attempts to trip an opponent
• jumps at an opponent
• charges an opponent
• strikes or attempts to strike an opponent
• pushes an opponent
• tackles an opponent
A direct free kick is also awarded to the opposing team if a player commits any
of the following three offences:
• holds an opponent
• spits at an opponent
• handles the ball deliberately (except for the goalkeeper within his own
penalty area)
A direct free kick is taken from the place where the offence occurred
(see Law 13 – Position of free kick).
Penalty kick
A penalty kick is awarded if any of the above ten offences is committed by
a player inside his own penalty area, irrespective of the position of the ball,
provided it is in play.

Indirect free kick
An indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a goalkeeper, inside his
own penalty area, commits any of the following four offences:
• controls the ball with his hands for more than six seconds before releasing
it from his possession
• touches the ball again with his hands after he has released it from his
possession and before it has touched another player
• touches the ball with his hands after it has been deliberately kicked to him
by a team-mate
• touches the ball with his hands after he has received it directly from a
throw-in taken by a team-mate
An indirect free kick is also awarded to the opposing team if, in the opinion of
the referee, a player:
• plays in a dangerous manner
• impedes the progress of an opponent
• prevents the goalkeeper from releasing the ball from his hands
• commits any other offence, not previously mentioned in Law 12, for which
play is stopped to caution or send off a player
The indirect free kick is taken from the place where the offence occurred
(see Law 13 – Position of free kick). "

I have set out all of that Law ( I think ) so as to avoid the suggestion of being selective.

The key part for the Gervinho and Barton incident in relation to did Gervinho dive or not is

"if a player commits any
of the following seven offences in a manner considered by the referee to be
careless, reckless or using excessive force....

......trips or attempts to trip an opponent"


Firstly, Tiote did not in attempting to tackle Gervinho in the penalty box use reckless or excessive force. I would hope at least that is agreed.

Secondly, I accept that there is an arguement whether Tiote was careless or not if there was contact but that would, if accepted there was contact, simply satisfy the first element of the possible offence. To be a foul the second element i.e trips or attempts to trip still has to be satisfied.

Thirdly,what is a trip? Below is the Collins Dictionary definition.

"trip [trɪp]
n
1. an outward and return journey, often for a specific purpose
2. any tour, journey, or voyage
3. a false step; stumble
4. any slip or blunder
5. a light step or tread
6. a manoeuvre or device to cause someone to trip
7. (Engineering / Mechanical Engineering) Also called tripper
a. any catch on a mechanism that acts as a switch
b. (as modifier) trip button
8. (Chemistry) a surge in the conditions of a chemical or other automatic process resulting in an instability
9. (Law / Recreational Drugs) Informal a hallucinogenic drug experience
10. Informal any stimulating, profound, etc., experience
vb trips, tripping, tripped
1. (often foll by up, or when intr, by on or over) to stumble or cause to stumble
2. to make or cause to make a mistake or blunder
3. (tr; often foll by up) to trap or catch in a mistake
4. (intr) to go on a short tour or journey
5. (intr) to move or tread lightly
6. (Law / Recreational Drugs) (intr) Informal to experience the effects of LSD or any other hallucinogenic drug
7. (tr)
a. to activate (a mechanical trip)
b.
trip a switch to switch electric power off by moving the switch armature to disconnect the supply See also trip out
[from Old French triper to tread, of Germanic origin; related to Low German trippen to stamp, Middle Dutch trippen to walk trippingly, trepelen to trample]
trippingly adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003"


We then have to ask whether Tiote's contact which if any was extremely minimal was sufficient to cause Gervinho a 24 year old man weighing 66 kg and 5 ' 9" tall moving at not too fast a speed at the time of "contact" to fall or stumble.

I feel that there can only be one answer and that is a most definetly not.

On that basis there is no foul which means there was no penalty.

There is no dispute that Gervinho did go down. There is, in my view, some contact by Tiote but only very minimal and most definetly not sufficient to cause Gervinho to fall or stumble to the ground. Therefore, what caused Gervinho to go to ground. Ignoring the arguements that the manager or team expect it which to me are just not valid points I believe the answer is simple.

He was cheating.

He was trying to get a penalty when by the Laws of the Game he was not entitled to one. He was trying to make the referee believe that Tiote had "tripped" him causing him to fall which clearly wasn't true.

The Laws of the Game as far as I can see do not at any place talk about "contact" in relation to this issue. If I am wrong please someone show me where. This is why the "numptys" on television, the so-called experts and ex-pro's annoy me so much as they keep regurgitating that old fallacy as if it were the gospel truth.

What I would love to see is referees clamping down on divers by sending off those who do it to win a penalty or to get someone sent off and a yellow for any other divers. Surely no-one can disagree with that not even footballers or Clubs. Unfortunately I do not believe the FA or FIFA or indeed any footballing authorities have the balls to do this. For me this, along with SKY money, is the cancer that is threatening to kill the game that I, and currently millions of others, love as a spectator sport.

Sorry for the length of article I do hope others read all of this and not just part and this has nothing to do with whether Barton should be castrated, hung shot or made a saint. I just hate divers and those experts who support them by claiming contact was made etc...


Would post this on other clubs sites but not sure how to do that. Will if any can tell me how.

 

What annoys me is that when the top teams win penalties via dives and get people sent off not so much is made of it. This is down to the tv pundits etc.

 

I appreciate the effort mate but this is way TL;DR for me today.

 

good article was a bit of a disgrace from JB after picking up girl-vinho but Gervinho should get an extra game suspension for the amount of times he threw himself around like a crash test dummy!
As for the rules, you are right most of the "pundits" are cluelss and just make stuff up as they go along, just ignore the ignorant pricks.

 

Great article and nice use of the actual rulebook. Just going to bring across a post of mine from a similar thread to this now.

I hate the way football is rapidly turning into a non-contact sport, where so much as tapping a player is accepted as giving them license to 'go down easy', it's still ****ing diving. If it is possible for you to stay on your feet you should, the only time I feel that going to ground is acceptable is if you have been severely impeded by the contact or actually knocked off balance. Players need to stop acting like delicate little flowers and play like men.