Thread: UEFA Watching - Some Questions?

Just finished watching UEFA Euro 2016 now going down to 8. As a casual fan of football or soccer (depending on where you're from) I love the athleticism, strategy and artistry of the worlds top players. The up close viewpoint television provides allows one to appreciate the skillful nuances of ball handling and shot making. Unfortunately it also exposes the thing I dislike about the sport. Injury embellishment. I can't think of another sport in the world where this unsportsmanlike activity happens on such a widespread and frequent basis. To be clear there are injuries resulting from both aggressive challenges and unintentional actions in the course of playing to win.

I've participated in a number of team and individual sports. Some at a fairly high level of competition (country wide rankings). Never once did I intentionally fake an injury. It never occurred to me to do that. I find it disrespectful to team mates and competitors. A team mate of mine doing this would have found himself at the wrong end of a uncomfortable discussion involving all of his team mates designed to eliminate repetition.

A couple of questions for members here who are more strident regular fans of this sport. Why does this go on? I know the referees for the most part do a very good job of ignoring the obvious dives but why does this seem to be acceptable to a large number of professional players themselves? Why don't the athletes police this issue? Why aren't they embarrassed by it? Does anyone find it to be an enjoyable part of the game? Wouldn't the game be better without it?