There was a time when football was a matter of two teams of 11 men trying to stick the ball into the back of the opposition's net. It was a good, honest sport, and if the tackles started to fly around a little bit then that was just part and parcel of the game. Players got up and got on with it - at least in Britain anyway.

When we did have to play foreign teams or international matches, we were often left astounded at the blatant diving going on. Players would fall over in the most dramatic fashion at the slightest contact. If that didn't con the referee then they would stay down and fake an injury, effectively saying: "Look at me! I was so badly fouled that I can't even get up!"

The problem became so epidemic that the rules were changed to try to combat it. Players had to leave the field if they received treatment, the idea being that if faking an injury meant your team had to play with 10 men for a few minutes, fewer players would do it. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked.

'Didier Drogba may be the worst offender, especially the way he feigns serious injury several times each game. But he is just taking what others do to another level'


Somewhere over the last 15 years or so, instead of being disgusted at players cheating we have come to not only expect it, but accept it. Indeed, in the media we hear not only an acceptance of the situation but an approval for it. "Was that a penalty, Jim?" "Well, there wasn't much contact but there was some so he was entitled to go down and ask the question, Bill".

Hold on... what? When were the rules changed and no one bothered to tell me? If you can show me where it says in the laws of the game that no contact is allowed, and where it now says that a player is allowed to exaggerate the effect of any contact, then fair enough. But the laws don't say that.

The defender brushing against you is NOT attempting to trip you. A defender challenging for the ball is NOT impeding your progress. Making a tackle is NOT the same as kicking someone. Throwing yourself to the ground in an attempt to get a penalty or free-kick, however, IS against the rules of the game, and it is not - as some commentators would have us believe - clever play. It is cheating.

It is now so widespread that it has infected every team in the Premier League. Some teams do it more than others, some players do it more than others, but doing it less is no justification for doing it at all.

Didier Drogba may be the worst offender, especially the way he feigns serious injury several times each game. But he is just taking what others do to another level.

As a Liverpool supporter I've seen Steven Gerrard do it, and recently Fernando Torres seems to have learned to follow suit. I hate it. Cristiano Ronaldo at Man United is terrible for it. But I'm just picking these names as they are high-profile examples. No supporter can say, hand on heart, that they have never seen one of their own dive.

There is no easy answer to the problem, but perhaps a good start would be for supporters to stop accepting it as just being part of the game - even when it is their own players doing it. And it would probably help if the media stopped with this "it's clever play" line and actually challenged players about it. I'd love to see a player picked up on it in a post-match interview:

"So, the opening goal Didier. It looked like you dived."
"No, the player touched me and I went down."
"Maybe, but it still looked like cheating to us."

Players would soon change their tune if they got that type of response from people. Perhaps we should get Jeremy Paxman to conduct player interviews from now on.