Wenger: an automatic ban would stop divers

ARSENE WENGER has called on the football authorities to dish out automatic three-match bans for divers. And the Arsenal manager claims foreign players have caused the problem to spread. Wenger wants to see the introduction of an ethics committee to have overall jurisdiction for implementing laws on numerous issues — including diving. The idea of retrospective punishments was thrust into the spotlight last week after Mario Balotelli escaped a ban for his horror tackle on Alex Song, and Shaun Derry failed to have his red card rescinded for bringing down Ashley Young in the box despite replays showing the Manchester United winger made the most out of the challenge. Wenger says the only way to stamp out diving is by coming down hard on the culprits. ‘We have that famous thing that the judgment of the referee has to be final — but I don’t agree with that,’ said Wenger. ‘We should have a superior committee of ethics who could still punish a player. You always try to be on the edge if you want to win. For example, you touch the ball and it goes out you shout “throw in for us”. But a dive in the box is different. ‘I think sometimes you can only sort it out after the game. With this committee, an obvious dive should be punished by a three-match ban. ‘But it has to be obvious diving. For example, Ashley Young against QPR, I would not suspend him because I don’t know if he lost his balance. He made more of it to get the penalty but it is not an obvious case for me.’ Wenger believes diving has become widespread in the Barclays Premier League due to the number of overseas players in England. ‘It’s right that diving has come from foreign players but the English players learned quickly,’ he said. ‘In England, you respect two things: that you get kicked but do not go down for nothing. The second thing I admired here in England is that you never surround the referees to get a yellow card for somebody else, you let the referee make a decision. ‘But even that has gone on. Not everywhere, but there is a trend now to surround the referee and that never happened when I arrived.’