FA to bring in retrospective diving bans

ENGLAND’S governing Football Association has voted in favour of bringing in retrospective bans for players who dive or feign injury from next season.

Yesterday’s annual general meeting at Wembley saw the FA create a new offence of “successful deception of a match official”, which is based on a regulation already used in Scottish football.

Incidents will be reviewed by a panel made up of a former player, a former referee and a former manager.

The trio will all look at footage independently and if they all agree a player has deceived a match official a two-game ban will be imposed.

The new rule will be administered in similar fashion to the one that already covers red card offences missed by the match at the time of the incident but recorded by television cameras.

If a player admits to a charge of successfully deceiving an official, or is found to have done so, any yellow or red card given to an opposing player, as a result of the deceit, can be rescinded.

The Scottish Football Association introduced its “rule 201” in 2011.