Retro bans on diving will wipe out cheats

THIRTEEN years ago, a group of hacks were invited to spend a day with the elite referees.

The Premier League allowed us to infiltrate a ‘Boot Camp’ at a hotel in Northamptonshire.

Sadly, that didn’t mean we could welly them up into air – nor did it mean that they could take out their frustrations on our reporting – which was a good job because Uriah Rennie was a big old boy.

However, after a quick coffee and introductions, we were then invited to become the men in the middle ourselves.

The exercise involved watching video footage and then handing out what we saw as appropriate punishments.

The officials obviously exacted t heir revenge as we waved around yellow and red cards like it was going out of fashion.

Mistake

The joke was then upon us. Viewed from different angles, the incident either looked worse than it was or that leg-breaking lunge was, in fact, nothing of the sort. It proved two things. First, that we weren’t anywhere near as clever as we thought we were.

And, secondly, that in the blink of an eye and from a poor vantage point anyone can make a mistake. It is with this in mind that I believe match officials should get every bit of assistance that they can. Goal-line technology? Tick. Help from the fourth official via a pitchside monitor?

Tick.

So, it is for this reason that the FA cannot pass up the chance to introduce retrospective bans for diving and feigning injury.

Officials from Wembley have announced they are heading on a fact-finding mission north of the border to see how our Scottish brethren implement their system, which has already seen a dirty dozen players hauled before a panel.

And a hearty “Well done” to them for attempting to tackle a long-standing blight on the game.

It was the former Scottish FA chief executive Gordon Smith who flagged up the issue almost a decade ago.

But, with a multitude of cameras – the latest being one suspended over the playing surface at Old Trafford for the Liverpool dust-up last weekend – there really is no escape in the Premier League from the beady eye of the lens. Having spoken to one top official about this, they welcome any help to stamp out one of the curses of the current game. It is beyond pathetic to see players such as Spurs’ Dele Alli and Hull’s Robert Snodgrass going to ground so easily, hoping that the referee in question suffers from a poor angle from which to view the incident.

And penalties have become a particular nightmare.

Players are now so quick and so good at spotting when a leg is thrust in their direction that they are looking to make contact themselves.

I felt more than a smidgen of sympathy for Andre Marriner earlier this season when Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha was involved in two penalty shouts against Liverpool.

Heartbeat

I watched each of them on the slow motion a few times and you cannot say definitively that the man in black was wrong – and Marriner made his decisions in a heartbeat. More importantly, however, it has been welcomed too by the world of football. Burnley boss Sean Dyche has come out in favour. There will be plenty of others, too, when the system is put in place. If players know they risk being publicly outed as a cheat – and potentially suffer suspension from it – then the practice will stop. It will take a panel of ex-professionals and a referee to sit in judgement and those who do fall over for nothing will be outed in public. And not before time.