Thetownend.com

As confirmed by UEFA.

It is a bloody shame because I have him in my fantasy football team.

I think it's funny. I mean everyone knows, and official bodies commenting on it only makes them look more incompetent than the English FA, because they can't do anything. Or can they? Not that I care of course, because him cheating is funny. As i said earlier.

Yes, but so is most top flight players.

How many dodgy penalties did Ronaldo get for Man Yoo over the years ?

Yet UEFA/FIFA actually promote cheating with their ‘double whammy’ rule for professional fouls, where you can get a penalty AND an opposition player sent off at the same time.

Not half as funny as Bloodgate...now revealing the true nature of the "corinthian" egg chasers.

Yeah but Ronaldo isn't a cheat, according to UEFA.

Neither is Steven Gerrard.

simon cox dived like that every week for us

i agree with that cox was diving but he found the net more time than he did

what?

If the authorities decide to punish players that dive then fine, but they seem to be applying the rules at random - why has Eduardo been singled out? What about all the other players that do it and get away with it?

It's odd that UEFA have punished Eduardo for this because if it happened at the Emirates diving probably occurred in the match between Debrecen and Levski Sofia too would they actively investigate that too?

Diving is annoying (accept when they're hilariously bad like Morten Gamst Pedersen's effort last season) and they're right to punish within reason but if they opt punish one they have to punish all.

Good luck with that.

I agree. I thought about this and wondered if we'd see wide scale action on this, but I'd imagine it'll just be a case of UEFA making a few examples of people. If the Premier league adopt such a policy, it would only be teams like Stoke and Hull that get punished and made examples of. And let's face it, it would change the game if harsh stances were adopted in countries like Spain.

i think it's a good move in theory
bad timing- should not be introduced a few games into the season though.

the sensible action would be for UEFA to say to the clubs and players- next season we'll punish you so you might want to think again about diving

retrospective action is a dangerous route and will only make the game a bit more farcical that it currently is

a good example of retrospective reffing would be to ban Razvan Rats for a few games for stamping on Yaya Toure's nadgers!

Platini's there, i expect him to inform Rats himself!

Wenger is such a cunt, it's an obvious dive, he knows it's a dive but he still comes out with his usual shite.

i love wenger

ben wah loves the gunners

It's no different, or even worse than, the countless amount of non-punished dives. Two wrongs don't make a right but in a sport like football it certainly should be highlighted because it is almost "witch hunt" like if one club is getting punished and others team are not.

If Eduardo missed the penalty would they have appealed to UEFA? Would UEFA had taken it seriously?

 wenger is right about about other cases being ignored because the referee had made his decision.even when it's cut and dried stuff has been ignored for that reason.
does this now mean everything wrong in the game will later be punished after tv evidence?i doubt it

What's odd is that Eduardo could get a two-match ban. But if the ref had spotted it at the time, he would've got a booking for it.

Therefore Eduardo is being punished for the referee's incompetence?

I said the same to my Dad - it doesn't seem fair to have two different punishments for the same offence. The rules of football are generally quite strict on cheating because it is considered wrong - deliberate handball, professional fouls and the like - it makes you wonder whether a dive should be considered a sending off offence. Let's face it, a lot of dives occur in the penalty area to unfairly create a goalscoring opportunity, so why should the punishment be different to somebody who unfairly denies a goalscoring opportunity?

The only problem is, you could see players being sent off when they were genuinely fouled, or if they tripped.

If we are going back to games to dish out punishment, can Schumacher get a red card for his "tackle" in the 86 World Cup game?  The simple answer to anyone diving is to give them a reason to be on the floor a little later in the game, surely?  It still puzzles me why Ronaldo wasn't given a little kick into the front row of the stands more often.

Yeah and the Wolves keeper (forget his name) who kicked Alan Mayes' head off. In fact as a result of that perhaps we should be re-instated in the league cup instead of the horrible Wolves ?

It is all a bit daft but none of this would be going on if Eduardo hadn't dived ! His own doing really !

Diving is cheating and, if this is a first step in stamping it out and all incidents start to be dealt with in the same way, I'm all for it. Start doling out 2 game bans and it'll stop, simple as that.

If it's isolated to this one incident, it'll make UEFA look even bigger cunts than they usually do.

I would also like to point out Chalkie White was ruthlessly hacked down at Wembley in 1990 and is in no way implicated in this debate.

Indeed. The only connection here is a word associated one regarding Poole and diving ! (cue Friendly Fires)

Taking action against players diving should be left to the referee, or if they want to bring in the technology the fourth official on the match day, not by a committee after the event.

What's next? The ball crosses the line, the ref doesn't give it but two days later the result is changed to goal scored.

No one has said the penalty won't stand. A goal scored is a goal scored. And your analogy of the ball crossing the line has nothing to do with what's being discussed, which is blatant cheating. If the ref doesn't see it, it doesn't mean it shouldn't go unpunished.

Diving is rife in the game and needs to be stamped out, if managers knew there was a chance of losing a player for a couple of games they would ensure it didn't happen.

diving is a problem, but there are other problems equal and more important that go ignored.
this has opened up a big can of worms now so where's the line going to be drawn?

One in the middle of the pitch, one all the way along the perimeter of the pitch and a few more around the goal area?

Sounds good to me. Why don't we add some little curvy ones in the corner too, to make it seem less of an abrupt change of direction?

Who mentioned anything about the penalty?  ... if we start banning players after the event it will not be the end of it, if this continues we will go home believing we have seen a 1-1 draw for example and then two days later find out that we actually lost 1-2.

Taking the decision making away from the ref (right or wrong) is not the correct thing for football imo.

I'm against the ref handing out cards during a game for diving as it is just far too difficult a decision to make most of the time and its almost a random decision whether to book them or not. The ref should decide if its a penalty or not and that's it. After the game they should have a look at any diving, anyone found guilty should get a 2-4 game ban - which is the only way you'll get them to stop it. What the fuck use is a yellow card for it?

is rooney gonna get a ban now?
dived into the challenge today

Nope, because Jonathan Pearce says "there was contact".

It was a dive.

It was a really slow dive mind, because he didn't hit the floor for 3 whole years.

Chalkie got stuck on the keepers glove, he'd have slipped on by if Poole hadn't of spat on them earlier to get extra friction.

The BBC are telling me the Rooney penalty was a "stonewall" penalty.

eboue did it too,but this is getting daft now.arsenal should have had at least a draw by the rules imposed on eduardo.blatant pen by fletcher to add to the non pen on rooney

I enjoyed Darren Fletcher say it was "debatable" - It was a penalty, not really sure where else you can go with that debate :)

He was nearly decapitated and that was the most obvious penalty in the history of Wembley. and I am 11 stone and handsome and never swear and am teetotal.

But Arsenal did score about a minute later, so justice was served

i'm not sure that takes away from the lack of refereeing ability that was shown at old trafford yesterday!

Rooney took a dive. He was lucky that he made contact with Almunia and in the end that's what got him the penalty. You could see it was quite blatent from the replay though. Almunia even tried to pull out of the challenge. Stupid goalkeeping though and it was asking for trouble. Eboue's dive was plain stupid. Everyone could spot it a mile off and given the week they've had I thought it was ridiculous. I also thought Arsenal were a bit hard done by but that's football.

Yes Eduardo did dive and should be banned, but you didnt see any banning for Ronaldo last season for all those dives he did

if they're gonna start dishing out 'decieving the referee' charges about, how about all the bristol team for the palace non-goal?

its fucking ridiculous to pick on one person when the game is riddled with 'simulation'.

It was inevitable that a Celtic plater would be sent off the following Saturday - a second yellow for diving :) But Aiden McGeadey is an "honest guy" ... sounds a lot similar to Wenger's comments.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/celtic/8229575.stm

Well done ref. It's a blatent dive.

But I think what UEFA are doing is wrong. If they were going to do it, they should have said so before the preliminary rounds and started then. Are they saying that there were no blatent dives in the 30 odd European Cup games weve had already? Its a joke. Just sticking their oar in because it is high profile.

Totally agree,seems wrong to bring in retrospective action without first of all warning players before
the competition started.I didn't see the game on friday night,but Wenger said that there were incidents in the Super
Cup match between Barca and Shakta that could be reviewed.
This smacks of a token gesture by UEFA.

It is more anti English rulings from UEFA.

But to be honest I understand. We deserve to be hated.