Keith Hackett, the General Manager of PGMOL, the body in charge of referees from the Premier League down to the Conference, has called a meeting of his top officials in an attempt to stamp out diving.
This is in direct response of the controversy after David Ngog’s, theatrical fall to earn Liverpool a penalty against Birmingham. Hackett has said he will be sitting down with Peter Walton, the referee, one to one and with a group, to see if anything could have been done by Walton to have avoided the error.
This might seem like a one-off exercise but is in fact something that happens on an on-going basis. At their regular get-togethers, the elite referees are shown videos of controversial incidents concerning one of their members, and the other members of the squad are asked what they feel could have been done better to prevent or avoid the situation.
It sounds like an excuse for colleague-bashing but it is far from that. The idea is for everyone to learn, not just the unfortunate referee whose deficiency is being highlighted on the screen. How they can best deal with a similar situation if faced with it in the
future?
For television commentators and pundits who have the benefit of replays and different viewing angles, it is very easy to pass judgement over diving, but in fact, it is an area of great difficulty for referees. I remember refereeing a woman’s match when a tricky forward dribbled the ball into her opponent’s penalty area only to fall over. The appeal went up for a penalty which I waved away. The coach demanded, ‘If it wasn’t a foul, why aren’t you booking her for a dive’. The simple reason, which was not apparent from the touchline, was that she stepped on the ball which caused her to fall over.
Then there’s the player who sees a tackle coming in and reacts instinctively to jump out of the way to prevent possible injury and goes over. Slow motion cameras will show no contact but was it diving to deceive, or self preservation? And what about clever divers who throw themselves against an opponent’s leg as they are going down, to make it look as if they have been
tripped? Another tricky call.
There is another angle that makes life difficult for referees, highlighted by Arsenal striker Robin van Persie, who admitted exaggerating a fall to earn a penalty. ‘When you get a little push stopping your attacking action, you’re right to show the referee you were pushed. That is not diving. That is saying, this is not honest play from the other player, he just pushed me so I can’t score now. It’s not cheating.’
The difficulty for the referee is if he gives the foul, the other team and their spectators will feel that he has been conned. Sometimes of course it goes the other way. The blatant exaggeration makes the referee feel that it is instead fabrication, simulation, and cautions the player for diving.
So can referees do anything about it? Yes, they can and should caution players who they see deliberately dive but other than that, their only weapon is to look at their positioning. I’m sure that is exactly what Martin Hansson, the referee of the Ireland/France has been doing every since he realised that Henry had cheated by handling the ball before France’s winning goal. As Keith Hackett said, ‘We have a duty to identify cheating when it occurs. Referees need to put themselves in the right viewing area to be able to see what’s happening but sometimes the speed and quality of the player and the way they can juggle the ball, does catch referees out.
So what is the answer? ‘Ultimately,’ as Keith Hackett added, ‘it is down to players not to commit acts of cheating.’
Dick Sawdon Smith
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