Why diving needs to be eradicated immediately

Welcome one and all, I’m Callum Rivett, and this is my weekly blog for The Football Front. 

It was a hammering for my team Norwich this weekend, but I would like to say the score line was not a fair reflection on the game. We lost 1-6 if you’ve been living on Mars this past week, but even with a few minutes to go, us Norwich fans were still singing and also applauded the team off the pitch. One last thing, then I’ll get onto my main blog: please would all the Norwich fans who constantly abuse Steve Morison and call him ‘lazy’, ‘disinterested’ and a ‘failure’ please leave my beloved club; we back our players, not bully them.

            

   
My article this week is about diving. 

 It is cheating, and divers should be punished. One high-key player who is very prone to diving is Ashley Young. He cheated QPR out of a game, and earned Shaun Derry a three match ban for minimal contact. Then, against his former club, he dived in the penalty area again, and fooled the referee into giving Manchester United a penalty. Diving is unacceptable full stop, but against his former club makes it worse. The club that gave him his big break in the top flight, and he treats them like this.

There was a person I was talking to on various message boards during the week on this topic, and he said his German PE teacher told him that German children were taught to dive whilst playing football at school. People could say that the ‘foreign art’ of diving has crept into the English game, but Ashley Young is English. Kevin Davies was diving earlier in the year, he’s English. 

Sergio Busquets is the most famous player to regularly be considered a diver, but Barcelona play arguably the best football in the planet, and I can guarantee that Busquets does not dive every game, and this assumption is based on two, maybe three, high profile games.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez (most games) have all committed the act of diving. 

Players don’t have to dive to be a good player. Look at Robin van Persie, Lionel Messi, Xavi, all brilliant players, they never feel the need to cheat their team to victory. 

            
My idea is this: punish players who dive or commit dissent by either sending them off in the game if it is seen/heard, or ban them for one or more game afterwards. This would soon get rid of the cheats, as if there is the possibility of them getting sent off, they would be more hesitant to dive to gain an advantage. The amount of games banned for depends on the effects the dive had: Ashley Young’s versus QPR would earn four, one for diving, one for the resulting penalty which was scored, one for getting Derry sent off, and the final game for the eventual Man United victory.

You could say that if Young dives in the European Cup and earns England a penalty which wins us the game, people will be singing his praises. This should not be the case. He should be punished for it. I do not want the rest of the world viewing our country as cheats.

                
To help the referees out, FIFA need to introduce video technology. There is a rumour that neither the referee nor the linesmen saw Zinedine Zidane’s head butt in the World Cup 2006 final, and was only sent off because the fourth official saw the it in a television replay that was nearby. FIFA denied this, but I believe it to be true.

Follow Callum on twitter: @calriv97. You can find more of Callum's work here.