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Diving in Football: The Big Problem

Diving is one of the biggest problems in football today. Many football fans get fuming mad when they see a player fall down without getting touched, or just being slightly touched, by the opponent, in an attempt to win a penalty and/or get a player sent off. Diving is a problem and like with many problems it must be analysed properly to find a reasonable solution. In this article I will go through the following: Players who frequently in their careers took or still take a dive, the history of diving, famous dives in football and solutions to diving.



History of diving: Klinsmann

Many believe that the origin of the modern dive comes from German international, Jurgen Klinsmann. Klinsmann took a ridiculous, yet effective, dive against Italy in the 1990 World Cup. The player who “tackled” Klinsmann got a straight red.




Klinsmann Celebration/Dive

Klinsmann was so well known for his dive that there even is a proper definition on Urban Dictionary of the “Klinsmann Celebration/Dive”. The definition clearly mentions that he was also known for diving in his time playing for Tottenham Hotspurs in England. Uli Hesse, a journalist and an author, explained the reaction to Klinsmann’s dive (the42.ie). Hesse says that there was not much of an uproar inside nor outside of Germany when that dive happened. It was not until he moved to England that his tactics became a big deal and controversial. Weather people look at Klinsmann´s dive as merely a tactic or cheating is debateable but what Klinsmann started is loathed by most football fans today.



Arjen Robben

Arjen Robben is on the list of many fantastic players who have been incredibly successful in their careers but are very much known for the controversial act of diving. The 34-year old Dutchman has been caught frequently diving at the Club stage as well as on the International stage. His most known diving incident happened at the 2014 WC in a last 16-match against Mexico. His dive lead to a decision made by the referee to grant the Netherlands a penalty in the 94th minute which was scored by Klaas Jan Huntelaar. The Netherlands won 2-1. The Mexican coach was absolutely furious with Robben, blatantly accusing him of making three dives in the game. Robben admitted that he took a dive twice in the game but not on the third one which led to the penalty. Robben said this: "I'm glad I said it. There was lots of controversy and everyone was speaking about it. I was honest and I got punished.” (ESPN)



Luis Suarez

Being a diver is one of the reasons why this 31-year old Uruguayan International is loathed by many football fans. Suarez is known for doing whatever it takes to score a goal and he has expressed his frustrations with certain defenders by biting them (Ivanovic, Chiellini and Otman Bakkal). At his time at Liverpool, Suarez was frequently criticised for his controversial behaviour on the field. Suarez made light of his criticism by doing a dive celebration right in front of the Everton coach, David Moyes, on October 2012. David Moyes even joked about the situation by saying that he would have ran on to the field and dived in front of Suarez had Everton scored a late winner.



Kids are watching

This was not the first time that a Liverpool player made a controversial celebration in a Merseyside Derby, because in 1999, Robbie Fowler did a line sniffing snort celebration at Anfield. One of Suarez´s most famous and recent moment of diving was for his current club, Barcelona, against PSG in the Champions League. Barcelona players are constantly being criticised for diving and many are worried that this sort of behaviour by footballers sets a bad example for aspiring football players. Kids all around the world look up to football players and they are considered to be role models. In the future, kids might think that diving is acceptable because they see their favourite player constantly doing it week in, week out.



Ashley Young

This 32-year old Englishman is notorious for being a diver. Ashley Young is more of a defensive player in the United squad today so he does not get a lot of opportunities to take a dive in the penalty box as he did before. His most famous dive came against Aston Villa, his old club, on Old Trafford in 2012. Young was obviously touched by his opponent but the way Young fell down made it completely clear that he took a dive. He knew what he was doing all along. Another famous dive by Ashley Young came against Manchester City when James Milner made an aggressive attempt to tackle Young down, however, he never touched him. Despite Milner’s effort, Young made it seem like he was kicked down but Milner did not hesitate to express his innocence to the referee.



The use of VAR technology

The new VAR (Video Assistant Referee) technology has many roles in a football match and one of the them is to make it easier for the referee to make a sound and fair judgment when a player gets fouled in the penalty box. A recent example came against WBA when Mohamed Salah was fouled in the penalty box. The referee took his time to make a fair decision but many felt that the the use of VAR negatively influenced the tempo and rhythm of the game.



The Solutions


Video related solutions

Sean Ingle, a journalist, wrote a story for the Guardian back in 2012 where he came up with his solutions to the diving problem and what he feels should be implemented to take on this huge problem. He frequently mentioned the use of technology and wrote about the use of “live video evidence” and “retrospective video evidence”. Live video evidence is something that is being tested in games today. Sean mentioned that the downside of “live video evidence” is that it would drastically slow down the game. However, he feels that it might be worth it because it would make players think twice before they take a dive. “Retrospective video evidence” is definitely being discussed by football fans because of social media. Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has expressed his desire to form a “superior committee of ethics” in which an obvious dive would be punishable with a three-match ban. Wenger emphasized the word “obvious” because sometimes it can be difficult to see weather a player took a dive or not. We never really know how painful it can be for a player to be even slightly touched and how easily his balance is affected when that happens.



Ethically related solutions and other solutions

The other solutions mentioned in Sean’s article are: “Extra Referees behind the goal” and “Players and managers to realise that they have a duty to the game”. The first one mentioned is in the title itself. There are already so many professional referees and different camera angles in a football game so it is very unlikely that extra referees behind the goal would make a huge difference. The second solution sounds kinda vague and not really specific but Sean goes deep into how a professional footballer should behave on the pitch. Footballers today face a lot of criticism today from social media but there is definitely a lack of moral guilt from players when they take a dive. Sure, players get punished for inappropriate actions weather in the form of financial punishment or a three-match ban, however, some players do not feel like they are doing anything wrong (per se) when they dive. That means that the managers have a duty to properly teach the players not to dive nor cheat. Not to cheat is a lesson that is being taught to every child in the world and it doesn’t matter weather a child wants to be a footballer, a plumber or a lawyer. Isn’t diving just a form of cheating? Why should it be an exception?



Conclusion (and personal thoughts)

Diving is wrong. You can say that diving is just another tactic but at the the end of the day it is still a serious violation of the beautiful game. Diving is one of the reasons why some people in the US will never watch “soccer” (as they call it) because they have this negative image of football as a bunch of Prima donna’s who fall down by being barely touched and then weep like a bunch of children. Despite that, I am very positive that FIFA, UEFA and other football associations will take appropriate actions to eradicate this negative act in the beautiful game.


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Post by: Ólafur Hálfdan Pálsson

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