I wrote an article yesterday detailing how I was taught to dive in football of the soccer variety at a young age. This tactic was taught to better players in a sort of "unfortunately this is the way the game works on an international scale" sort of way, and while we were opposed to the notion as kids, we quickly saw results by using these tactics in games, even though it is really an awful way of getting an advantage and I am sure that none of us felt good about the advantages we got because of it later in life.
I know I don't.
But everyone knows that diving is a major part of the sport and the professionals are very good at it. Some of the biggest names in the sport are well known for being experts at diving for the sake of free kicks, and one of the most famous of all times, Christiano Rondaldo, was well known for having a specific type of way of dribbling that would enable anyone approaching him to find themselves in a position of committing a foul, real or make believe, often.
now the thing is, if you were/are a fan of the team that Ronaldo (and many many others - I'm not picking on one particular person here) then the fans would applaud getting a call that resulted in a goal, even if they know that it was undeserved. I can't recall a single time that any team has turned on their own players for diving and if you are aware of such an instance, I would love to know about it.
I also recall a time when USA was playing in the World Cup and Landon Donovan, largely regarded as one of the greatest American players of all time, had the ball taken away from him on the back line, and rather than pursue, he decided to go for a flop instead.
He did not get the call from the officials and as he lied there on the ground with his hands outstretched complaining to the officials the person who took the ball off of him casually went towards the goal and scored. I don't recall if USA lost that game but since it was the World Cup, I am presuming that they did.
Here's the thing: Everyone knows that diving is a regular part of the game and most people, especially when such a call results in a loss for their side, would agree that diving is a horrible part of the game and should be eliminated.
Here's the thing: It could be eliminated for the most part given the technology that we have now, but it isn't. So why is that?
I found an article written over 10 years ago that addressed this and there is a quote in it from a FIFA executive about it and he said:
“If it is absolutely no question whatsoever that it is a dive, I think perhaps Fifa have to look at whether that should be a red-card offense.”
It's just a yellow card offense and this is presumably to protect the players from the officials having a bad angle and thinking something was a dive when it wasn't. In all honesty, if a dive is detected and is undeniable, that person should be shown red for sure IMO. That person is deliberately cheating and if that is not grounds for being ejected, what do they have to do? Punch or bite another player?
Now the executive in question that said the above also had this to say
“I believe that we don’t want to ruin our game by bringing in a lot more technology,”
I agree with this and so would most of the football of the soccer variety loving world. One of the things that makes the game so great is that it keeps moving and I agree that outside of very special situations that video review should not be used as it would seriously slow down play. Anyone that lived through the times of American football where "instant replay" was overused can understand why this constant review of footage cannot be used.
However, I think that there can and should be post-game reviews where offenses are handed out for clear violations of fair play. A single match ban would suffice as this would seriously deter anyone who is thinking of using diving as a tactic from doing so. For much more serious dives, the ban should be more than 1 game.
Neymar is probably the most famous for this sort of over acting and has been turned into memes and .gifs because of it.
I think that a post-game review of suspected dives could change the game for the better yet they don't do it. As of now the only sort of retroactive penalties that can be enforced is a dive that the referee did not see during the match. If it has been seen and determined by the official to not be a dive, then no retrospective action can be taken. This wording, which is the official stance of FIFA, is far too ambiguous to ever result in any sort of "fair play" enforcement.
The official stance of FIFA is that "establishing a precedent for re-refereeing incidents at a later date could undermine the referee's authority" and I think that is a load of crap. Referees are human, and humans have certain restrictions such as perspective and fatigue as they are running around during the match as well. Players are trained (I was) to use the referees position on the field against them as far as diving is concerned, and the professionals are certainly much better at this than the average person like myself.
It is worth noting that even if a retroactive action is deemed necessary, this applies only to national organizations, and does not apply to international events because: reasons.
IMO, there isn't any good justification for not taking retroactive action against players who dive in a match. We have the technology, we have had it for a very long time. The only reason that I can come up for why this isn't put in place is because it has become such an established part of the game's strategy that implementing something like this would hurt some of the biggest and richest clubs in the world in that some of their star players are the star players specifically because they excel and convincing diving.
I can't think of any other possible reasoning. Can you?