Stop Diving In Football

Feb 06, 2006

Over the past few years we have seen more and more cheating and diving going on during football matches.

Until someone at FIFA or UEFA does anything about this or listens to the fans it will only get worse.

Just watching slow motion replays shows that more 9 times out of 10 the player either:

A) Hasn't been touched; or

B) is holding a part of their body that wasn't touched just because it is easier.

Sometimes during a match a player could have seemingly have their career finished by a tackle, more than once, but still be able to finish the game and play next week.

I've seen players get a hand touch their face and go down as if they are dying. I've seen players screaming in pain after having their shirt pulled! How on earth can that hurt you.

There is no way FIFA, UEFA or any of the member associations can believe what they are seeing on the pitch is real but they still let it happen every week. So far the only real example of anyong getting punished is Rivaldo at the World Cup in Japan but even then he was fined the equivilent of £10.

The situation is so bad that on the UKs cult football show Soccer AM they even play clips each week of players falling over without being touched to the music if Platoon, but still none of the authorities want to do anything about this.

I've seen diving in league matches all over the world, in World Cups, in Cup Finals and during the Champions League but no one will do anything about this.

I want to get 1 million signatures for this petition so that we can make FIFA and UEFA listen.

I have a number of ideas to help drive this out of the game but no one in FIFA or UEFA or anywhere else is prepared to do anything about this.

Feel free to e-mail me at stopdiving@googlemail.com

Let's get as many signatures as we can to make them listen.