..............I know he dived, thats obvious, but had he not would he not just have been clattered anyway and maybe risked injury. Silly tackle from the Brummie !

the issue for me is, he had time to avoid the tackle and could have hurdled the challenge AND easily stay on his feet. The fact that he made no attempt to stay on his feet, without being touched, means he should be banned and at least one of his feet amputated as punishment.

That'll teach the cheating twat

No Manure bias at all there!!

i'm shocked i truly am

I would expect the same punishment to ANY player for ANY team (apart from Pools! )

seriously though, its the one thing i despise more than anything else in football. The punishments for acts like that should be severe. and i mean severe. Diving as bad as that should come with a 4 month ban from ALL football including reserves, that'll teach the cheating fuckers

I don't suppose you were saying that while Ronaldo was high boarding his away around Premiership penalty boxes.....

yes i was actually

i dont like cheats.

I cant believe there was no fuss about Bents blatant dive for that penalty against spurs.

probably because it goes on so much that its almost becoming the norm.

Fergie touched on it when he said the players had lost faith in referees.
What I think the players were getting at is that they have no faith in the refereeing system, which appears to have no answer to cheats. So they then take the stance....if you can't beat them, join them.
I don't think it is now feasible, when everybody can see replay after replay, to deny the referee the same facility. Either give him it or deny it to everybody else.......if that is at all possible.
Another way of stopping cheating would be for a panel to assess the recording of games/incidents and dish out the most stringent punishments to both the player and the club. If you get managers trying to stamp it out instead of encouraging it then that would go a long way towards eradicating it.

good point dibbs. Whats the refereeing like at your kids level? Do they give free kicks for every little bit of contact or are they more lenient?

I think we all know that diving and cheating has always been there, old son.
That's no reason to stop discussing it and suggesting ways and means of eradicating it.
It is a fact of life in football that results/success is demanded more these days and any mortal thing that prevents that is going to be wheeled out ad nauseam.
Football at the highest level is generating huge amounts of money but instead of putting that money to good use, for the betterment of all aspects of the game, those in power have decided to give a disproportionate amount to the players.
We have brought cameras into horse racing to determine the finishing order, into cricket, into rugby and we use electronic technology at tennis as well as having umpteen "judges" dotted around an area similar in size to a penalty area. So why don't we use it in football??????????????
As you rightly point out, these things have always gone on but surely we shouldn't still accept them when it is within our powers to improve on them.

I agree there is a lot wrong. I consider cheating to be trying to get an advantage using illegal means. Mcleod's elbow is cheating and should be treat as such. It is also violent conduct and should be treated as such. It is also against the law and should be treated as such.
If you or I get caught breaking the law on camera we get punished, so should McLeod.
My point is that deliberate cheating is seen by everybody over and over again. The FA use video evidence to ad
minister punishment, so why not let the referee use it?
It's quite simple. The referee sees or doesn't see an incident. His mate who is sitting in a room surrounded by the necessary equipment tells him what he needs to know and bingo. Sometimes the crowd wouldn't even know that the decision was made elsewhere. Then when pillocks like andy Gray showed it again we would all be saying how well the ref was doing.
Lower down the leagues more eyes around the ground, similar to what is being tried in the Europa league,would scrutinise play.
I'm not suggesting that it would be 100% perfect, but it would help. If it didn't improve then scrap it and look for other solutions.
At the moment we know the problem exists but seem to be reluctant to try and remedy it.
Why

Am I the only person in the world who thinks this whole diving thing has been blown out of all proportion? Everyone in the media has taken a holier than thou attitude about it and when all is said and done, it is NOT that serious.

What is the difference between diving and say, shirt pulling, obstuction with a body check and moving the ball forward a few feet for a free kick? They are all outside of the rules but football is a highly competitive game at all levels and I would argue that any player, with a passion to win, will try and gain an advantage for their team.

Sunday morning footy is full of players standing on the oppo's toes at a corner or nipping them in the small of the back, just to try a gain a small advantage. FFS, every week on MOTD, you see players virtually wrestling each other to the ground at a corner.

It doesn't wash with me in the slightest when people harp on about diving being the scourge of the game and all the bollox about bringing in retrospective punishment when there are a thousand ways to "cheat" in a game of football and the rest (rightly) go unnoticed and untalked about.

Not one single Pools fan would complain if Boydy went down a little too easily to win us a penalty and maybe three points in the next game, not one! And I bet any of you who have played competitive football have also "cheated" in some form or another.

Leave things be. Concentrate on better training for the officials to spot these misdemeamours but if players get away with them, good luck to them!

bang on


I think the commentators exaserbate it too, when their is 'contact' and a playyer goes down Andt Gray or whoever will say he is 'entitled to go dwon there'!!!

seriously, WTF????!!!

when I play and I get 'contacted do I fuck go down or think I have a right to fall over and cry!

I keep going with the ball and kick it over the bar!

footballers these days are not nice people

Cheating is cheating whether it be diving or bending any of the rules to gain advantage.
The problem, as I see it, is that modern technology highlights it far far more than it used to.
We can either accept that it is possible for everyone other than the officials to analyse every little incident or we can level the playing field and help the officials cope with the fact that they are not allowed to see what the rest of us see.
The more that players get away with, only encourages them to try and get away with more. I understand that players will take every advantage they can, we've all done it. I don't blame the players, they are encouraged to cheat by coaching staff and inept refereeing.
If you allow a tiger into a classroom of five year olds you can't then complain if it eats a few.
What we CAN do though is give the referees a bit of help.
As for retrospective punishment, we have it now where it suits the games rulers.
There is one thing I know for certain is that when I played school and junior football we were not encouraged to cheat, it was frowned upon, as was arguing with the officials. Can we say the same now???? No we can't. Every kid in the country watches their heroes and copies them.
We either accept cheating as part of the game or we don't. The fact that so much air time is given to it and so much discussion takes place (this being an example) means that we do care about it.