Cheating/football

[Joesh]

Old topic, but still in my mind important.

Watch any football game, from grass roots to top level and consistantly you'll see diving, cheating and embarressing behaviour. I'll look over it when it is us as loyalty hides these things but it truly is bricky when you are watching a game with a neutral trying to convince them that x has really been hurt when in 30seconds hes running around. You try to find excuses but you just cant 8-[.

Football is as I have seen it a joke around the world as I have seen games played in so many different countries but the universal trait seems to be cheating, not skills. To be honest I'll be surprised now if a player just gets tackled and gets on with it, instead of rolling around. But reality is, football is so far from a mans game, that you have to dumb down your masculinity to even watch a game....:ross: Its easy to say I am embarressed to say I am a football fan but love Spurs so hate when others do it. Please give me a reasonable Bale defence.

Just watching some games where the result doesnt matter and you still get the same behaviour in friendlies etc. I have played football myself and other sports enough to realise this is all flimflam dressed in drama/soap opera hiding utter poor sportsmanship or just plain girls blouses.

The most popular game in the world etc is humiliating for a normal fan to endure if their team/country is not profiting from the result...

 

[Crawley]

I blame the foreigners. All of 'em. Grrrrrrrrr........

 

[milo]

I agree.

When people criticise a referee's performance or a particular decision, I think that we should remember that frequently he has had 22 people trying to con him for an hour and a half.

 

[Joesh]

:ross: I do too. Seriously though, it is crappy listening to commentators worry over an injured star/nobody with the usual "He doesnt go down unless he's really hurt" only to see him carried off on a stretcher to jump straight off at the side line in a hurry to get back on... Christ I cant remember seeing a hard fought honest game of football in a long time. I used to believe in this game.

 

[Joesh]

I agree.

When people criticise a referee's performance or a particular decision, I think that we should remember that frequently he has had 22 people trying to con him for an hour and a half.

I really wanted to post this subject without being accused of being a WUM but the refs/linesmen have it tough with many players. On sky you see it in slow mo and tear the arse off the ref for not seeing it live...the players lying hurt grabbing any part of his body in agony. The ref- maybe in a split second blinked or just was looking elsewhere turns around to see a player in distress. The player looking like they have lost a kneecap will obviously influence the ref if he has to guess and he'll issue a blind yellow or worse red.

The player gets up, innocent, the ref is labelled useless.

 

[milo]

I really wanted to post this subject without being accused of being a WUM but the refs/linesmen have it tough with many players. On sky you see it in slow mo and tear the arse off the ref for not seeing it live...the players lying hurt grabbing any part of his body in agony. The ref- maybe in a split second blinked or just was looking elsewhere turns around to see a player in distress. The player looking like they have lost a kneecap will obviously influence the ref if he has to guess and he'll issue a blind yellow or worse red.

The player gets up, innocent, the ref is labelled useless.

I've stepped in and covered as a ref a few times and it is bloody difficult

 

[Joesh]

Seriously, I have this argument with friends at this time of year when the "drama" is over and you get to watch games you dont have a "vested interest" in and you end up cringing at the behaviour of the players wishing you had never stood up for football in the first place. It would be funny to put up a poll to see how many think the game is honest, I dont even mean bribes/corruption just general football. Its a mans game we are told but how many watch a Real-Barca crunch game and cringe at the theatrics...

 

[Joesh]

I've stepped in and covered as a ref a few times and it is bloody difficult

I dont doubt it, you sometimes get a spilt second to decide while getting players from both sides trying to rush up and "influence" your decision, even without the added simulation. You always disappoint someone etc

 

[parklane1]

I agree.

When people criticise a referee's performance or a particular decision, I think that we should remember that frequently he has had 22 people trying to con him for an hour and a half.

Without a doubt, its the hardest job in football and without refs they would not be a game. Always makes be laugh when you hear fans bitching about refs and saying that they are the reasons we lose games.

 

[Hootnow]

I really wanted to post this subject without being accused of being a WUM but the refs/linesmen have it tough with many players. On sky you see it in slow mo and tear the arse off the ref for not seeing it live...the players lying hurt grabbing any part of his body in agony. The ref- maybe in a split second blinked or just was looking elsewhere turns around to see a player in distress. The player looking like they have lost a kneecap will obviously influence the ref if he has to guess and he'll issue a blind yellow or worse red.

The player gets up, innocent, the ref is labelled useless.

Completely agree and like Milo, I have been saying this for a few years.

Obviously sometimes you just get preposterous decisions when you think it was harder for the officials to make the wrong decision than the right one but there are 22 quick, powerful and highly fit individuals who spend the whole match trying every single little pathetic move to win the game.

Obviously though, when you're in the stadium, all objectivity flies out of the window and you think every single decision is going against you.

I've often wondered how these players don't get embarrassed when they see themselves a bit later on, especially the ones who fancy themselves as hardmen. When you're in your mid 20s or 30s, is it not shameful to have millions of people watch you roll around after a nothing touch, only for you to be up in the ref's face about it 10 seconds later? Or to go down under no contact?

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

I agree.

When people criticise a referee's performance or a particular decision, I think that we should remember that frequently he has had 22 people trying to con him for an hour and a half.

I can see where your coming from milo old chap and the refs do have it hard which is why i think retrospective action against divers is the step forward.

But regarding cheating it is still stuck in my mind how a linesman gave arsenal a penalty from 60 yards away against Norwich and how a ref gave bale a yellow card for diving in our last game of the season when it clearly was not. Im sure the is some corruption in this game of ours.

But i agree with the original poster the is a lot of cheating but not just in football now it is in all sports, its as if people saw it in football and then they think the footballers get away with it so we will try. Im thinking about some of the sprinting i saw in the spring classics season in cycling.

Infact you could say when people see for example some high profile people getting away with things like tax dodging they then think well others are doing it so why not me. Really it is to do with the standards slipping in all of society. It is why i have an increased admiration for andy murray, i see him as one of the good guys.

 

[milo]

There was a letter on Football365 last season that suggested players and managers serving bans should serve them reffing amateur games. Completely unworkable but I loved the spirit of the idea.

 

[camspur]

I refereed for 5 years and in that time I did make mistakes, you see one thing from one angle and from another it will look completely different. You have a split second to decide whether there was contact or not, whether the hand went to the ball or it was ball to hand, even if it hit the hand at all. But all those decisions are based on human judgement and regardless of the decision only 50% of the players on the pitch will agree with it.

What makes it infinitely harder is the number of players who actively seek to con the referee into giving them decisions when there's clearly no foul by diving and play acting.

 

[Raziel]

Problem is, football is still run as a stone age business.

- Take aside the hurt and rolling around and running fine 30 secs later, next time you bang your knee into the coffee table at home, see how it hurts like a mofo, then you are fine a short while after.

The fact is, a number of decisions will always be really hard to call, however

- Post game video replay with adequate punishment will fix it, and I'm not saying things like where the player went down too easy or made a meal of it, more the brick (and we have a few gifs around of the type I'm talking about) where it was pure con, no contact, or stamping on the player, etc.
- Make it where the opposing team can request 1 or 2 incidents a game to reviewed (not the fudging ref who may or may not have had to see it), no change to game result, no interruption of play, just an adequate and significant punishment post game.

Simple fudging solution ... but will the macarons running football and league, European or global ever fix it? I doubt in my lifetime

 

[Joesh]

The worst part of this is like I started with, this cheating epidemic is not with just "the foreign lads", its in every level of football now. You can watch a friendly now where a player will play act, where there is no real gain in overall terms. It may be that its worse abroad as you see 6ft + players roll like small kids checking for blood in places they were supposed to be elbowed but the Prem is a foreign league now, you get talked into accepting lies by the commentators if you watch it on tv where by they make some feable excuse for them.

But if you watch live games and hear the groans of the crowd at some ridiculous dive, its hard to accept and lets be fair if you are an honest player watching these guys succeed will make you want to emulate this.

How do we stop cheating if cheating has become a skill, if not the skill, in football? How can you legislate to make players honest when cheating or winning at all costs is their instinct - Suarez etc

 

[Robbo]

Severe, post game punishment for cheating is one place to start. Video reviews after the game, spot the worst examples (there will be in 90% of top flight games, at least), and give ten game bans for each player shown to dive or play injured.

It will be a proper spectacle of complaining players at first, but in the long run, it will only benefit the game - because players will adapt to do what's best for them and their team. Which a ten game ban clearly isn't.

 

[metalgear]

its human instinct to cheat, and the easiest place to start is the weak link.in this case its the ref.
in the end any parent will tell you that its about values, standards and consistent enforcement.
what technology offers now can be correct behaviour, punitive actions, just like how you would with a child.
it would be great if fifa organized football can offer more than just sports, competition and entertainment.

 

[Joesh]

Severe, post game punishment for cheating is one place to start. Video reviews after the game, spot the worst examples (there will be in 90% of top flight games, at least), and give ten game bans for each player shown to dive or play injured.

It will be a proper spectacle of complaining players at first, but in the long run, it will only benefit the game - because players will adapt to do what's best for them and their team. Which a ten game ban clearly isn't.

I love the idea, but the problem is its so engrained in players, they dont even think about it, they feel something and they go down as a reaction. The top teams in football all have a majority of "cheats" or players who are "professional" enough to get an opposition player a red card for nothing. I think that we are so far gone the solution is more how we deal with it as fans as the game will not change. We have to accept this is football and its not going to change any time soon. The question is can you love a game, not just Spurs, where this is the reality.

 

[Rorschach]

I love the idea, but the problem is its so engrained in players, they dont even think about it, they feel something and they go down as a reaction. The top teams in football all have a majority of "cheats" or players who are "professional" enough to get an opposition player a red card for nothing. I think that we are so far gone the solution is more how we deal with it as fans as the game will not change. We have to accept this is football and its not going to change any time soon. The question is can you love a game, not just Spurs, where this is the reality.

I don't think we should accept it. I'm with metalgear on this. So much of the poor behaviour could be eradicated practically overnight with the appropriate use of technology. FIFA are an old boys club that don't like change. Just look at the misogynistic dinosaur that runs the show and it is obvious exactly what tone is set within the organisation. Other sports have embraced technology but football has decided to embrace money, as far as I can see. Even something as simple as goal-line technology, which would have an almost negligible effect on the game, has still not been introduced.

I had a real WTF moment recently at my 4 years old mini-league football thing he does where one of the kids dived and started rolling around holding his leg groaning. FFS he was 4 years old!! This is not what we should accept. Redraw the line and take it from there.

 

[Ossie]

What I don't understand is that this doesn't happen at amateur level (at least it doesn't here in Australia). If any of our Sunday league guys rolled around in agony or feigned injury they'd get either laughed off the pitch, or actually given something to whine about.
So at some point, as you go up through the leagues towards professional football, it must become accepted practice. Where's the cut-off?