Football has always had its dark arts, but diving feels like it’s getting harder and harder to ignore. Some of it is subtle. Some of it is laughably obvious. A player feels the slightest touch, throws themselves to the floor, then rolls around like they’ve been hit by a van. The frustrating part is that everyone watching can often see exactly what’s happened within seconds, especially with slow-motion replays from five different angles.
That’s why I keep coming back to the same thought... VAR, do your job. If the technology exists to spend three minutes checking whether someone’s toenail was offside, then surely it can step in when a player has clearly tried to con the ref. Diving is cheating. Simple as that. Start handing out yellow cards retrospectively for obvious simulation and I honestly think a lot of it disappears within a season. Right now, there’s barely any downside to trying it, and that’s part of the problem.
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