The more I speak to people who were football fans since the 50s, the more I notice how much The Beautiful Game has changed. While we can dismiss these opinions as the ramblings of old men, there is obvious truth in how football has become less and less of a contact sport over the years. In this era of players getting paid millions and treated like superstars, will football ever return to being a contact sport?
Recently there has been a lot of debate around Ashley Young and his blatant diving antics to win penalties. People have been calling more than ever for the introduction of a “third umpire” like in cricket to check the validity of players going down as though they have suffered a leg amputation via a blunt axe. Wenger has been particularly outspoken against diving, and suggested that players get reviewed by the FA, and if they are judged to have dived they should face a three match ban.
To me though, the introduction of such technologies is not solving the root of the problem. Policing bad sportsmanship is not going to remove it any more than making racism in sport illegal going to change a racists mind about a black player. What is needed is an overhaul of how football is seen by everyone from the fans to the FA. In rugby, players are seen in a positive light depending on how tough they are; how hard a tackle they can survive. Perhaps everybody needs to start approaching football that way.
Like we used to.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating dangerous tackles. As an Arsenal fan I certainly know the effects of leg breaking challenges in the last few years alone (See Eduardo, Ramsey, Rosicky, Diaby...), and I don’t want to see any dangerous tackle go unpunished. What I do want to see though, is a tougher stance by referees on diving as a start. How many times have we seen a player go down in the box and the referee wave play on? Now surely the player went down so theatrically for one of two reasons: there was either contact, by which it should be a penalty, or it was a dive in which case a yellow card should be shown.
Play on, says Mr. Ref.
The next thing we need to change is managers defending their diving players in the press. Obviously that is perpetuating diving because even though ‘Arry may have had a private word with Bale after his dive against us, he was happy to tell the world that he thought it was a penalty.
This is as unacceptable as the dive itself.
If managers start to publicly attack their players for diving it will go a long way to changing the culture of diving in football. If ‘Arry had said “Yes of course Bale dived, and it was bloody disgusting sportsmanship”, what would have happened? Bale would have been publicly embarrassed, gone down in the estimations of every fan and made himself a less desirable player to other clubs. He also would not have gone down so easily the next time he was in that situation.
While it may not change the situation totally, these two different approaches will certainly help when it comes to players being cast in the Ashley Young Ballet. Better still, to do this we don’t have to make any rule changes, which means we don’t have to get those most ineffectual, useless people (read F.A.) involved. If we want to go the whole distance though, we could involve them by putting forward Wenger’s idea of banning divers for three games, as well as publicly humiliating guilty players. If we push for these three changes answer me this:
Who is going to dive knowing he will be given a card, then embarrassed by his own boss and finally banned for three games?
Follow me on Twitter @Young_Matt21
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