Reuters Soccer Blog

Why can’t divers be punished immediately?

Juventus winger Milos Krasic dived to win a penalty in Sunday’s 0-0 draw with Bologna. We know this because his team mates have admitted it, even if the replay evidence was pretty clear anyway. No contact at all and no slip.

Justice was done for Bologna when Vincenzo Iaquinta fluffed the spotkick but if he had scored, the goal would have stood and there is nothing in soccer’s rules to reverse it.

Krasic could face a ban from Serie A in the next couple of days because of Italian federation rules allowing video evidence to be used to review referees’ decisions.

Several other leagues don’t permit the referee’s authority to be questioned in this way and only rule on cases of mistaken identity or on action the officials haven’t seen.

But if video evidence is going to be reveiwed a couple of days later, when it would have been no use to Bologna, why can’t the evidence be looked at immediately, therefore preventing the penalty?

Ian Holloway, boss of promoted English Premier League club Blackpool, reckons the fourth official could have a booth by the dugouts with a television feed where he could quickly check crucial decisions. 

The fourth official has slightly more power this season, he can alert the referee to incidents he might have missed, but other than controlling managers in the technical area and holding up the electronic board, his time could be used better.

Tougher action needed on soccer ‘simulation’

Chile’s Group H game against Switzerland was wrecked as a spectacle by the dismissal of Swiss midfielder Valon Behrami for what the referee saw as a serious foul on Chile’s Arturo Vidal — to the disbelief of Swiss coach Ottmar Hitzfeld and his players.

It was an incident that changed the game from a nicely balanced encounter into one where Switzerland were forced to defend with 10 men for the best part of an hour eventually losing 1-0.

It would be interesting to see what FIFA make of the incident if they take a look at the TV pictures, which appear to show Vidal making a couple of hand swipes to the side of his opponent and then dropping to the floor, hands over face, as if he had been struck hard in the face – when it looked like he had barely been brushed.

“Vidal fell down with a lot of drama. It was quite a performance,” Hitzfeld said after the game. “It clearly wasn’t a red card — it wasn’t even a yellow card. It was unfair of Vidal to roll around on the floor and simply ask for a red card.”

I have some sympathy with Mitch Phillip’s point below that we should blame the players not the referees for rule-breaking but if there are cases when refs are confusing serious fouls with playacting then perhaps they need some help.

Soccer has a large infrastructure set up to deal with testing for performance enhancing drugs, a clear case of cheating, but has next to nothing in place to deal with what FIFA refers to as “simulation”.

Any player guilty of “simulating” a foul or an assault is not just conning the referee and cheating an opponent – he is cheating the spectators at the stadium and the watching millions around the world. It is apparently easy to trick a referee by a sudden movement in a fast-paced game but the rest of us watching slow motion replays aren’t so easily hoodwinked. And who wants to be taken for a ride like that?

A proposal from Germany could help cut out diving

Referee Peter Walton could face a suspension from the Premier League list if it is decided he made a mistake in Monday’s 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Birmingham.

Walton reckoned Liverpool striker David Ngog had been fouled by Lee Carsley and ignored the protests of his Birmingham team mates before Steven Gerrard converted the spotkick. Even Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez said afterwards he did not think it was a penalty.

Former Premier League and FIFA referee Graham Poll is among those saying the FA must change the rules, arguing that if the referee can be banned for a mistake, players should be punished too. Under current FA rules, players who dive cannot face retrospective action if they were not booked for “simulation” during the game.

Maybe the FA could follow a recent German experiment. If a player was thought to have dived, the referee was instructed to ask him: “Did you dive?”

If he said he did, he was not punished, but neither did he gain any advantage and the match went on.

If he said he didn’t dive and DVD evidence later proved he did, he was handed a severe ban.

Is Eduardo’s two-match ban too harsh?

UEFA’s decision to hand Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva a two-match ban for diving has infuriated the Croatian media, many fans and national team coach Slaven Bilic.

“It is a shameful decision, especially in view of the fact that Eduardo personifies everything that’s decent in professional sport,” Bilic told Zagreb daily Vecernji List after learning the verdict.

Fans and media have gone to even greater length in defending the Brazilian-born Croatia striker, who has won the hearts and sympathy of his adopted country after recovering from a horrific leg break he suffered in Arsenal’s Premier League match at Birmingham in February 2008.

The sense of injustice in Croatia wasn’t helped by last weekend’s injury suffered by Tottenham playmaker Luka Modric, who faces up to six weeks on the sidelines after breaking his leg in a league match with Birmingham (again).

Croatia’s leading sports website, www.sportnet.hr, had harsh words.

“Eduardo has been punished in a most detestable manner, supposedly so that justice is done, while justice was deaf, dumb and blind only 18 months earlier when he was in bed with his ankle shattered and his career hanging by a thread,” the website said.

Is Eduardo a victim of double standards, or simply his own ill-judged decision to go down rather easily after minimum or no contact with the goalkeeper?

Should video challenges be used in soccer?

Anyone who tuned into Wimbledon over the past fortnight would have seen how the world’s best tennis players have the right to challenge line calls they deem incorrect.

From the days when John McEnroe screaming ‘You cannot be serious’ was seen as the height of bad manners,  we have progressed to a TV-friendly present when Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and co have the right to question decisions — and have them reassessed on video.    

It certainly adds to the viewing experience and according to Tony Cascarino, the former Chelsea and Republic of Ireland striker-turned newspaper pundit, football would be wise to follow suit.    

Writing in The Times, Cascarino said: “Football should learn from Wimbledon’s use of technology. Managers should have ‘challenges’ when they can call for replays to review decisions. It would help to eradicate mistakes and reduce cheating.”    

The sound arguments for video technology — particularly to see whether the ball has crossed the goalline — do not need repeating here but, if it were introduced, the decision to seek video help should surely remain in the hands of the referee.    

Nevermind the flow of the game being interrupted, how about the damage to the referee’s authority? Would it really help football to give managers official licence to query their decisions mid-match?   

Theatricals starting to spoil the football

When I go to the theatre, I wouldn’t expect to see a soccer match break out on stage.   And so when I’m watching a soccer match I don’t want to see theatrics.

But watching the diving, feigned injuries and other nefarious attempts to fool the referee when Spain played against Italy in the quarter-finals made me wish both teams could somehow be eliminated.   It’s a beautiful game, but it was bad theatre and worse soccer. It was the first match of the tournament that I stopped watching after a while because the acting was putting me off.   Italy’s Luca Toni might be tall and intimidating when he runs towards the goal — and a likeable player at Bayern Munich — but several times it looked like it only took a gentle breeze to topple him in Vienna.

Spain’s David Villa later got a yellow card for diving in the penalty area but he was by no means the only player to hit the ground hard after the slightest contact.

German referee Herbert Fandel deserves credit for seeing through it all. Sure, he might have failed to award a penalty in the first half for Spain but really it’s like the little boy who cried wolf. After a while you assume everything is an act.

My favourite moment of the tournament? Ruud van Nistelrooy staying on his feet against Italy despite being tripped by Italy’s goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon in the 18th minute. The score was still 0-0 and he could have fallen and got the penalty as the ball rolled away from him. But he didn’t.   Similarly Eren Derdiyok of Switzerland stayed on his feet a few nights later despite a clumsy challenge by Turkey’s goalkeeper Volkan Demirel in the heavy rain in Basel. He rounded the keeper and crossed to Hakan Yakin, who tapped the ball in.

I’m glad we’ve seen more of  the Van Nistelrooys and Derdiyoks in this tournament so far and less of the Spain-Italy theatrics.