We agree with the Man City man and we have a plan to stop all this diving rubbish once and for all!
Manchester City captain Richard Dunne has claimed Chelsea deserved to be knocked out of the Champions League by Barcelona because they are ‘divers’.
As Chelsea continue to bemoan what they see as an injustice at the hands of Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo, Dunne indicated they have only themselves to blame because of some of their past behaviour.
Talking before today’s derby against Manchester United, Dunne said: ‘The refs have been given rules and they have no option but to punish defenders sometimes. But there are a lot more divers as well. It has crept in more and more, but what goes around comes around. You dive around and teams score against you in injury time.’
Speaking about Drogba in March, Dunne said: ‘I am not an admirer of how Drogba plays the game. It is frustrating when you see your opponent testing the referee.’
Dunne, sent off seven times in his City career, will face another player with a reputation for theatrics at Old Trafford today, United’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Portugal winger has been sent off twice against City in his United career and Dunne added: ‘He is the best player in the world and he plays the game to his advantage. At times, he can be running so fast that any nick could send him tumbling. He makes the most of the situation, I suppose. But diving or not diving, he’s impossible to mark when he’s on form.’ (Daily Mail)
It is possible to end this diving irritation pretty much once and for all and it wouldn’t even be that difficult to implement.
It’s simple really. You employ an official to view all the games on tape (not a bad job if you can get it) and he then decides if a player has dived or feigned injury during a match. That official then gathers up offences, and maybe imposes punishment based on regularity of offences.
It wouldn’t be that hard to get this working, yes on on occasion it can be hard to judge if someone has dived or if a player is really injured and not just trying to get a player booked but on a large number of occasions it is clear as day to everyone but the referee that a player is in fact simulating in an attempt to con a referee.
What do you think? Could it work? I am not sure something like this doesn’t already exist but surely if it did do we would know about it and some players would find themselves perpetually banned from the game until they gave up on their cheating ways.