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  • "Harry you are absolutely correct but the rot set in when referees under pressure from the FA and managers stopped abiding by the rules of the game. If you were to apply the code book today you would end up sending off the whole teams leaving perhaps the two goalkeepers. Dissent is an automatic yellow card,- with some players and their mouths a red card a few moments later. Diving is a yellow card for "ungentlemanly conduct" i.e. trying to get your opponent sent off. Arguing and failing to get 10 yards, should be like in Rugby, 10 yards further up the field.
    However it's not going to happen and refs, through the pressure of assessors and the FA, will turn a blind eye to the rule book.
    I agree with Pittbullboxing video technology would stop a lot of cheating. Saw a dive this week-end when the "guilty??" player was nowhere near him. Run that through a video and the "diver" would have been off. That would stop it eventually."
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The sickness at the heart of sport

9:42am Thursday 17th May 2012 in Letters By Reader letter

The sickness at the heart of sport The sickness at the heart of sport

NOW that our domestic football season is over, it is very clear that diving and conduct verging on cheating have become an accepted part of the modern game.

When even serious TV commentators come out with comments like "He’s done well, and won his side a penalty" the word dive or cheat are seldom used, but they might say he went down rather lightly.

Meanwhile in the stands if an opposing player goes down he’s greeted by chants of “cheat,cheat” but if it’s one of their players they get rapturous applause.

We know that this element of the game was imported mostly from Italy whose players would go down at the slightest touch as if hit by a sniper’s bullet.

But is this really what the beautiful game has come to or does this just reflect our modern society were anything goes and any sense of decency and honour belongs to a bygone age?

So embedded in the modern age has this become that during practice a session is taken on the techniques of diving and other dark arts of the game.

I wonder what the likes of Best, Law, Matthews and Dean would make of it?

We even see it creeping into other sports now with cricketers refusing to walk from the crease when they know contact with the bat was made, and snooker players who have made a double contact with the cue ball not owning up.

We even had a rugby union player biting a fake blood capsule to fake a mouth injury to get a player sent off.

Maybe it’s me and I’m just a spoilsport, or something fundamental has changed in the world we live in, and sport is not what it used to be.

H Bradbury, Loughrigg Avenue.

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