One thing you learn very early as a referee, is that no matter what you do, you can't win. When you make a decision the offending side will usually claim it is wrong. If you don't make a decision when a team think that there should have been one in their favour, then that team will feel free to criticise you.
At the beginning of the season several Premiership managers made noises about players diving. Opposition players of course. One that sticks out in the memory is Robbie Savage of Leicester in their game against Derby County. Jim Smith, the then manager of Derby, was almost apoplectic with his condemnation of what he believed was Savage's cheating and, along with other managers, demanded that referees do something about it.
Now if you believe what you read in the papers and hear from television commentators, Premiership referees have answered their call and decided to take action against diving or 'simulating action intended to deceive the referee' as the laws quaintly call it. Certainly over the Christmas holiday games several players were cautioned for diving and some even sent off when it has been the second cautionable offence. The reaction from their managers has sadly been predictable: 'Travesty of justice". "Referees are spoiling the game".
I appreciate how difficult it must be for managers to admonish a player for diving when that dive may have 'won' the penalty that gains the points. But they can't have it both ways.
magine, if players were honest and didn't try to make out they have been tripped or fouled, how much better the game would be. How many times have we seen players get a slight touch and go down writhing in agony? Having 'conned' the referee into taking action against their opponent, sometimes a yellow or even red card, they get up off the ground as if nothing had happened. The next thing that happens is opposition players trying to take matters into their own hands and more disciplinary action required from the referee.
The whole situation regarding diving is nowhere near as simple for the referee as it looks from the touchline or indeed on the television screen.
One of the problems that referees face is when a player goes down and makes a meal of it. The referee has to ignore the theatricals which make it look as if he had dived and concentrate instead on deciding whether the player had been tripped.. Although Jim Smith castigated Savage for his behaviour, if he looked at the video later that evening he would have seen that Savage was caught by one of his players but then threw himself to the ground. When the referee blew for a penalty Savage then did a victory roll as if he had achieved something rather than just being fouled. Opposing players believed he was celebrating cheating his way to a penalty.
I don't know whether Premiership referees at one of their fortnightly enclaves did decide to clamp down on diving, but I don't think that anyone can deny that diving is cheating and a blot on the name of a sport which, from its inception, is based on fair play and sporting behaviour.
Something does need to be done, but I suggest that, instead of blaming the referees for taking action, managers look to themselves and how they deal with their players. Why should it always be left to the referees and the authorities to make a stand? Managers should make it clear to their players that they do not countenance diving and that they support any action that referees make take, even against their own team.
Dick Sawdon Smith