Fair Play or Win at Any Costs?

[Professor]

I gave up playing football as a CB myself in the 1970's because simulation, especially in the penalty area, was becoming common at my level of senior football, well outside the professional game. So it's not new that players throw themselves down, although the technique of making deliberate contact with the defender and then going down has become more refined until today's Prem League is almost in a class of its own. Serie A used to have the reputation as home to the 'best' simulators, but perhaps that could be claimed in England now.

 

We've seen plenty of it in L1 and in the Champ over the last couple of years and not only by our opponents. There is the old adage that if you can't beat them, join them, so as long as the administrators and the referees fail to deal with simulation there will be continuing pressure on players, and on managers, to do it and even encourage it. In the Prem, should we be the clean team, playing by the rules, or should Adkins have the players watching videos of Ashley Young to see how to do it better than he does?

 

Corinthian Casuals FC, playing in the Rymans League - still promote fair play and sportsmanship in football. Their predecessors, the Corinthians, twice provided all 11 players for an England team and in 1904 they inflicted Manchester United's record defeat of 11-3. The return match was played in 2004 when Man U won 3-1, meaning that Corinthians are still 12-6 winners on aggregate! It was a part of the Corinthian's approach to the game that if they were awarded a penalty, the fouled player would decide if the defender had meant to foul him and if he thought not, they would deliberately send the penalty wide of the goal. To win by the rules will always be far far more satisfying than a win by cheating, but these days satisfaction takes second place to the money.

Edited 8 June, 2012 by Professor

[Gemmel]

It's a tough one. I hate all the diving and think that our only problem is Lallana.... the flip side and completely hypocritically, is I would have taken each and every one of the penalties, his dives didn't get.

[Barry the Badger]

It's a tough one. I hate all the diving and think that our only problem is Lallana.... .

 

Jose Fonte is a master.

[Toadhall Saint]

It's a tough one. I hate all the diving and think that our only problem is Lallana.... the flip side and completely hypocritically, is I would have taken each and every one of the penalties, his dives didn't get.

 

Agree on that but I would kind of feel shabby - don't like diving at all so, although I'd take the penalty it still wouldn't sit quite right with me. Personally I think that if caught the player should be red carded - if the player is trying to hoodwink the officials then he should go. Might or might not stamp it out but at least the player would know the consequences.

[cambsaint]

In defence if one is trying to perform a very skilful and difficult manouevre then it only needs a touch to knock one off balance.

Of course falling if not touched should be a yellow card at least.

I still recall one unsimulated fall in the penalty are in the 60s when Jimmy Gabriel chinned a CF in the middle of the penalty area as everyone else was running forward- I wouldn't want those days back again.

[Dig Dig]

If a player goes down when there has blatently been no contact then that is cheating and I would hate to see our players doing that.

 

However, sometimes players have to make more out of contact in the box which would be a foul anywhere else on the pitch. If decisions were fair and consistent in this regard than I think we would see a lot less "simulation".

[Frank's cousin]

The acting like a pansy is my biggest grip... rolloing around cluthing the shin in agony.... could learn a LOT from the egg chasers on this score... cant believe footballers have no shame in being considered such wet girly cry babies... very simple and effective ways to stop this to, but never seems to be discussed. 1. Let physios on teh pitch and continue the game, 2) IF a physio does come on the pitch, the player MUST leave the field of play for 5 minutes 'recovery/assessment' time.... see how quickly they start getting up then.

 

On simulation, very simple in the top leagues... simple. The player can let the ref know he dived/no contact ON the pitch and face no punishment. The Ref is then allowed to review a post match video with colleagues and the video review post match reveals he did dive, then an auto 3 match ban.

 

Get rid of both without significant cost or impact on the game.

 

I know some say its part of it, and it 'evens' out, but just cant stand it when cheated against and embarrassed when our players have done in the past - It also means that genuine shouts for a penalty or foul are 'overlooked' at times which is again not fair.

[buctootim]

You can't be totally honest in the modern game ("no ref that freekick shouldnt go to us because I did touch the ball before it went over the line") but I'd like Saints to be seen as one of the two or three fairest and most honest sides in the division.

[The9]

The acting like a pansy is my biggest grip... rolloing around cluthing the shin in agony.... could learn a LOT from the egg chasers on this score... cant believe footballers have no shame in being considered such wet girly cry babies... very simple and effective ways to stop this to, but never seems to be discussed. 1. Let physios on teh pitch and continue the game, 2) IF a physio does come on the pitch, the player MUST leave the field of play for 5 minutes 'recovery/assessment' time.... see how quickly they start getting up then.

 

On simulation, very simple in the top leagues... simple. The player can let the ref know he dived/no contact ON the pitch and face no punishment. The Ref is then allowed to review a post match video with colleagues and the video review post match reveals he did dive, then an auto 3 match ban.

 

Get rid of both without significant cost or impact on the game.

 

I know some say its part of it, and it 'evens' out, but just cant stand it when cheated against and embarrassed when our players have done in the past - It also means that genuine shouts for a penalty or foul are 'overlooked' at times which is again not fair.

 

The problem with that is that referees even watching the video will continue to make terrible decisions and generally retrospective punishment shouldn't be the way to go - it doesn't redress justice for the side that's been offended against, and in fact could help their rivals in subsequent matches.

 

None of the "make them leave the pitch" measures have been effective, mostly they penalise genuinely injured players and allow timewasters to waste even more time.

 

Even yellow cards for bookings haven't really worked, and I'd hate to see red cards, it would completely ruin the game as a contest with refs just choosing to ignore dives instead of send players off or making awful decisions which are pivotal to matches - I accept they have to do that anyway, but the number of times they should have to make game-altering decisions should be kept to a minimum, and draconian punishment doesn't support that.

 

I'm against the "kick your leg into the defender" dives, and the "rolling around" stuff that you don't do if properly injured though.

[The9]

Did I mention Joey Barton is a massive C?

 

You didn't have to.

[Barry the Badger]

The only way to deal with it properly is by allowing refs to review video evidence post match. It's impossible to tell at full speed a lot of the time because players have become so good at doing it.

[Supersubpuckett]

Rather stay up with a bit of gamesmanship, if thats what it takes, than occupy the morale high ground and go down honourably - but I wouldn't like to see our players wave cards at the ref and roll around like they've been shot etc.

[Professor]

Adriansfc is right IMHO. Sending-off is a very harsh punishment that can too easily be given wrongly, but even when given correctly it often ruins the game with a knock-on effect on the league table. It made sense in the days of the Corinthians when anyone not prepared to play fair wasn't welcome in the game but these days its often hard to see the consistency of referee decisions. The idea of an intermediate card, either for a temporary sending off, or an enforced substitution makes a lot of sense. So why is it that the administrators don't have the common sense to do something about it?

 

As for the idea that its OK to cheat if it keeps your team in the Prem, where do you draw the line? Are other teams expected to cheat as well? And how far is cheating acceptable to fans - could you stick a hypodermic needle in an opponent to disable him as an alternative to trying to break his leg?

[CanadaSaint]

I despise the diving and embellishment, and I very much like the idea of retrospective punishment. The cheating needs to be eradicated from the game.

 

But it doesn't help the cause that many of the game's top international administrators come from countries where this kind of play-acting is viewed as a necessary skill and an art.

 

We could at least do it in the UK but then we're at an even bigger disadvantage in international (club and country) fixtures.

[The9]

Next question, what to do about Spanish refs giving yellow cards for Greeks winning headers and nudging Polish strikers ?

[hasper57saint]

Cheating is endemic in higher league football. Watch the extra three yards on the free kick,the extra ten or so for throw-ins, the speed at which players shake off that 'crippling' foul. Diving is diving. We can all see it. One red card would put the sh.ts up most of them. OK Refs get it wrong but if he sees a dive then 'Red it'. The player can always appeal if he didn't dive!