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?

Over here in the UK it's been part or the game for over 20 years now, it came mainly from Europe,

Yes I think the game would be better, but without TV replays etc.... and also no retrospective action being taken, its just been accepted as a way of getting an advantage conning the ref etc..... even running the clock down.

Maybe one day it will change, I hope so but it would be a long way off imho

In NBA basketball the term is "flopping" and fines can be levied against offending players. NBA announces anti-flopping rules for playoffs | NBA.com

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? [/QUOTE]

Just all part of the game. The players try to get an advantage by acting out these "flopping events" so as to psych out their opponents in the hopes they will back off in their defense a little. If they back off the opportunity for a shot may be come. However the ref's know a good acting job from the real thing. Anyway, you gotta love the game! Enjoy

One of the problems with world football is a resistance to accept technology such as TV replays - about the only time it comes into play is if there is a suspicion that a player was not suitably punished for an infringement - generally dangerous play. Local authorities can then increase a penalty after viewing TV evidence.

However, if TV were to be used to help with the specific question the OP asked, the Referee would have to stop play and view what happened and then decide whether a foul was committed or not. This is seen as infringing on the game too much and is unlikely to happen. The referee does have the power to punished a player he deems to have play-acted, but it doesn't happen often and certainly not enough.

The strange thing is that lots of shirt pulling and wrestling for position goes on in the penalty area which is unpunished - if it happened outside the penalty area the referee would undoubtedly call a foul but is loath to do it in the penalty area because of the consequences - a penalty rather than foul.

Maybe one way to overcome the problem is to select certain games (at random) for retrospective review and the power to enforce sanctions. The argument against this is that the team that suffered, say team A (because the referee was conned by a team B player) do not get any benefit from retrospective action - in fact, team B's next opponents may get some benefit if a team B player is banned from playing.

The only way round this is for the players to be more honest - however, with so much at stake in professional football, I wouldn't hold your breath.