Everyone agrees that diving to win a foul or draw a booking for the opposition is cheating, but there are many other “dark arts” that can be considered as morally dubious.
Considering how universally despised diving is in the football community, it is incredible that it is still so widespread. Managers, players, officials and fans are all vehement in their criticism of simulation, and the discussion on it refers to it consistently as cheating, something beyond mere gamesmanship.
It is interesting to see the almost immoral edge assigned to diving, and it is also interesting to have a look at a few other examples of things that footballers do, that are also essentially cheating, but are not given the same level of vitriol.
Footballers presumably know all the rules, so just as they know they are not allowed to simulate contact to gain a foul, they are also not allowed to advance closer than ten yards at a free kick, handle the ball to help control it, or pull down an opponent when he is clean through on goal.
These are all more commonplace in football than diving, but are not considered a pox upon the game. Indeed the latter is brushed off as something a “player has to do for his team”.
I would agree that diving does go further than that in that players are trying to mislead the referee. But they do this in a multitude of other ways. Every time the ball goes out of play both sides appeal for the throw in. Every time a player fouls another they almost comically protest that they got the ball.
Dishonesty pervades every aspect of the game, and infects football at every level. Any match where a referee is involved, from Premier League to lunchtime six-a-side, people will try and trick them.
The very worst thing a player can do is surely to set out to injure another player. It’s very hard to truly see when that has happened. Awful challenges happen by accident, even if a player can be said to be culpable through poor play, they are not assigned any moral blame like divers are. Even when someone like Roy Keane admits he set out to injure Alfe Inge Haaland, he is not turned into a pariah in the game, and indeed now sits as a pundit judging other players for going down easily.
To tackle the issue of diving opens up a can of worms in modern football. Every player cheats routinely in matches. They appeal for free kicks they know they don’t deserve, they claim every throw in, then stride ten yards up the line to take that throw in, they always “get the ball” and they are simply never ten yards. On occasion, they even go in hard to try and inflict damage on a fellow player.
Diving is not the be all and end all of the gamesmanship in football, or even the worst example, it is simply a symptom of the dishonesty inherent in the game today.
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