Buzzin Football

This weekend the Premier League was once again blighted by poor refereeing, wrongfully given penalties and cheats diving to get free-kicks and penalties.

After last week’s dismal display by Mike Riley when he gave out seven yellow cards to Manchester United against Chelsea in a game that was bereft of bad tackles, I was hoping he would make amends when he blew his whistle to start the oldest local derby in English football – Everton v Liverpool.

Alas, once again Mike Riley stopped the flow of the game of football by continuing to blow his whistle throughout the game. I was also very surprised by his straight red card for Tim Cahill, but since has considered it may well have been given for Cahill turning his back and walking away after Riley had requested his presence.  That said, surely that would have resulted in two yellow cards.

Furthermore, two games I saw were Manchester United v Bolton and Wigan v Manchester City.  Both involved players diving in the penalty area to fool referees into giving a penalty.

Cristiano Ronaldo clearly dived after a fantastic challenge inside the penalty area; and in yesterday’s game between Wigan and Manchester City, Garrido certainly clashed with Palacios, but the talented Honduran definitely dived to make the incident appear worse.

I hate the theatrical diving, holding a face when a player was clearly not touched, and writhing around on the ground until a player is shown a red or yellow card.  What I propose is that any contentious issues be reviewed with video evidence.  If the FA do not have the time or resources to do this, then I propose they randomly and secretly choose two or three games each week.  Any diving or faking of injury will result in the player receiving a one match ban.  If this practise was put in place then I believe managers like Alex Ferguson will soon put a stop to Ronaldo’s antics.

Poor referee decisions are not so straightforward.  A referee sees an incident once, at normal speed, and possibly with players in between him and the offence.  I therefore believe in the case of penalties and goal mouth decisions the fourth official could very quickly give a second opinion, or possibly even override the referee.

Furthermore, if the video replay showed a player wasn’t failed, and he had taken a dive, then that player could be shown the red card.

Now, that might sound radical to some.  But how else are we to stamp out diving and poor referee decisions that directly result in goals.  If the FA and the Premier League show the way, the rest of English football, UEFA and FIFA could follow.