Tuesday 17 April 2012

Gary Neville - What A Tosser

I’ve not written a blog in a while but Gary Neville’s comments on Sky Sports this week have riled me so much I’ve actually been enticed to put pen on paper (so to speak...).

On the subject of Ashley Young’s second theatrical dive to win a penalty for Manchester United in as many games, the former ‘United’ defender seemed to deem the act of diving as fair play.

After showing several examples of players, including Beckham, Lampard and Gerrard throwing themselves to ground in order to con the referee, he said, “I don’t think these players are cheats.”

Now they may not be serial cheats in the manner of Suarez, Drogba, Ronaldo and the like, but in the examples shown by Neville, they were undoubtedly involved in the act of cheating. There’s no two ways about it. If you fabricate or enhance the extent to which an opposition player has made contact with you, you are cheating, end of story.

And it’s attitudes like Neville’s which are ruining the game. The acceptance and even encouragement of cheating should be refuted not revered. Yes, it is part of the game. No, this does not make it ok, it does not mean the authorities should accept it and it does not mean self-respecting players or coaches should encourage it.

Of course, the situation is not helped by referees, whose actions seem to make players feel they have to exaggerate contact to be awarded the decision which they should have got anyway. And it’s helped even less by the likes of the FA, UEFA and FIFA who have taken little or no action against diving or ‘simulation’ as the footballing version of the PC brigade will describe it.

When then Arsenal player Eduardo dived in a 2009 Champions League qualifier against Celtic, Arsenal appealed against the two-match suspension he received – and won. From some angles, it looked like a clear-cut dive, from others a stone-wall penalty. But UEFA backing down opened the door for more and more players to realise they could get away with it, on the basis that at the speed top-level football is played at, it’s very difficult to ‘prove’ what everyone knows was cheating.

If the authorities took a firm stance and started banning players, whether through straight red cards during games or as retrospective suspensions, it would cut so much vile cheating out of the game. Even if it took a few players being harshly banned, more would try their utmost to stay on their feet and coaches would stop training players in the ‘art of diving’.

But His Royal Highness Neville had something to say on that too. Apparently, if you start banning players for three games there would be “total anarchy in football”. Sorry Gary, I fail to see the problem with that. If it cleanses the game and cuts down on cheating, surely a few managers throwing their toys out of the pram wouldn’t be a bad compromise?

Call my cynical, but I can’t help but think if it had been a Liverpool player diving to win a last-minute, match-winning penalty against Manchester United, he may have a slightly different outlook.

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