I’ve been reading a couple of books by two former England centre forwards. My granddaughter gave me Chris Sutton’s book ‘You’re better than that’ for Christmas and I treated myself to Peter Crouch’s ‘How to be a footballer)’.
Two very different books.
Sutton devotes a whole chapter to diving, which he abhors, calling for the football authorities to properly punish the divers.
On his Radio 5 Live programme, they had a session called ‘The Simulation Game’, in which, Chris and his co-host, Ali Bruce-Ball, named and shamed the players, who by their theatrical tumbles that week, they felt had brought the game into disrepute.
Calling It simply cheating, he wanted a three-match ban, wondering why they hadn’t been caught on the VAR’s cameras.
Peter Crouch in his much-acclaimed book, doesn’t look much at playing the game, but at top flight players way of living, such as their cars, their weird haircuts and dodgy tattoos, as well as blowing the gaff on transfers, of which he had more than his fair share.
However, in his newspaper column, he claimed referees were responsible for the amount of diving.
Players knew if they didn’t go down after a tackle, referees would play on, so it was their way to get justice.
Of course, according to the law, it is a foul even if the tackle doesn’t bring the player down, as it says, ‘trips or attempts to trip’.
There is another aspect, which I doubt whether even many referees are aware of. In the book containing the Laws of the Game, there is a Glossary with a 2020 addition stating, ‘a holding offence occurs only when a player’s contact with an opponent’s body or equipment, impedes the player’s movement’.
Should referees therefore only punish a trip, if it actually brings the opponent down? Also, for diving to be an offence, the player must be attempting to deceive the referee.
Peter Crouch suggests that players only dive to influence the referee. Is this the same as deceiving?
I remember attending a training session with David Elleray of the IFAB. He invited a helper to walk across in front of him.
When he reached him, David stuck out his foot and the poor unsuspecting helper fell over it on to the floor. We all gasped, but David asked, did you notice what he did with his hands?. ‘He put them out to protect his fall’, we all cried out.
Correct, said David but when they dive, players invariably put their hands above their heads. On so many occasions since, I have seen that proved correct.
