Diving in Soccer

 

This is one of many posters denouncing that terrible act that is too often encountered in football, diving. Here, Ashley Young, a player for Manchester United is shown in a parody of Bruce Willis’s Die Hard in Dive Hard 2. Iain Mcintosh of ESPN Soccernet addressed the prevalence of diving in soccer today with this great . After the Real Sociedad versus Manchester United Match, Young’s recent antics brought diving right back to the forefront of discussion. Even after Sir Alex Ferguson and current United manager David Moyes have urged Young to not rely on these dirty tactics, he continues to be in the news for the wrong reasons since his transfer to United from Aston Villa.

In the English Premier League, Young is not the only prominent player to be accused of diving. The great Luis Suarez, an absolute magician who can conjure goals out of nothing for Liverpool, has been under fire for his dives. Compared to Young though, he is an absolutely brilliant actor. In fact, if there was an oscar awarded in football for diving, Suarez would be up there with the likes of Barcelona’s Sergio Busquets and Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo for performances like these.

While these acts happen, people point to better refereeing to remedy the situation, but it is not as simple of a fix as one would assume possible. Unfortunately, in these situations, the referee is put into a tight bind. Since player safety is always the utmost priority on their part, how can referees eliminate instances of obvious cheating? Macintosh suggests that to remove diving from the game we can completely eliminate it by playing the advantage in these situations as the most extreme solution. Interestingly, he also proposes the use of a panel to determine how to dole out retrospective punishment for these major offenses that can easily dictate the outcome of crucial matches from the Champions League to the World Cup stage. This panel would be well suited to asses the complaints made by teams to ensure that these incidents do not happen. By ignoring the situation, we only exacerbate the problem by permitting these acts to continue to occur. Players must realize that there are repercussions for their actions that often go unobserved because they occur in small instances over the course of matches. By having an committee in place overseeing these issues, soccer can once again be played like it was supposed to be as the beautiful game.

What do you all think about the best ways to tackle the complex issue of diving? I would love to hear your thoughts.