Referees force players to dive

I’ve just watched Manchester United fight their way to a point in a typical early season battle at Stamford Bridge. The best player on each team, Ronaldo and Drogba, are both far from their best and both started on the bench. The football was average, so to me, the biggest story from this team was the terrible refereeing. It is a strange thing to say in a game with very few controvercial incidents and where no single decision made by the referee decided the outcome of the game.

However, Mike Riley’s performance in this game was absolutely terrible in my view. He did as much to ruin the flow of the game as was possible within the powers delegated to him through his black shirt, whistle and two cards. There was one area in particular where he showed a lack of understanding of the game: In his view, if you stay on your feet it’s not a foul, if you fall down, the referee has a decision to make.

There was a two minute stretch in the second half where two incidents in Manchester United’s right back area illustrated this point perfectly:

• First, Christiano Ronaldo got the ball from a team mate along the sideline about half way down his own half. Frank Lampard approached him fast, and Ronaldo turned quickly and went down, as he anticipated the contact from Lampard. The contact never came, but Riley blew his whistle and awarded a free kick. Lampard was robbed of a decent goal scoring opportunity.
• Shortly thereafter, Michael Ballack chased a ball down toward the corner flag. He nudged it along the sideline and Gary Neville’s sliding tackle came in too late to catch the ball. Ballack avoided the tackle – had he not, he might have been facing a few weeks on the sidelines and Neville would’ve certainly received his second yellow card and been sent off – but his progress toward the corner flag was impeded and the ball went out for a goal kick. Since there was no contact and Ballack stayed on his feet, Riley didn’t blow his whistle, in spite of the obvious foul committed by Neville.

Referees rarely award free kicks or penalties when players stay on their feet. Hence, players are forced to make a decision when they feel contact. They have to judge if the contact has been forceful enough that it’s better for the team to get a dead ball situation than to try to continue their movement. If they continue their movement they can still try to win the ball and score a goal, but they’re almost definitely losing the opportunity to win a free kick, since the referees only award free kicks to players who go down.

The worst consequence of this is that players sometimes decide before the contact occurs that they will go down. This is when you see diving. For most players, diving isn’t a way to try to cheat your way to a free kick or penalty, it’s a way to communicate to the referee that you think you have been fouled or expect to get fouled. Yes, there are many players who will dive to try to cheat when they are not fouled, but in most situations, the player is exaggerating the result of the contact in order to convince the referee to blow the whistle.

TV commentators also get this horribly wrong. They consider the merits of a penalty or free kick claim on whether or not there was contact. Any footballer knows that you do not lose your balance just because there was contact with another player. Conversely, any footballer knows that a forceful sliding tackle doesn’t have to make contact with you to make you lose your balance or stop you on your progress with the ball.

If I kick the ball past you and you come at me at full pace and try to slide tackle me, I refuse to stay put and let you break my leg. I’m going to jump out of your way and that jump may cause me to fall or slow me down to where I lose the ball. When your slide tackle doesn’t break my leg, that doesn’t mean you didn’t foul me, so I may choose not to stay on my feet when I land to force the referee to make a decision. The referee will not blow his whistle if I stay on my feet, so he is in effect forcing me to dive.

Michael Ballack chose to stay on his feet and try to catch up with the ball, but Gary Neville’s sliding tackle was enough to cause him to lose possession. The commentators commended him on his honesty, but it caused his team to lose a goal scoring opportunity.

Christiano Ronaldo chose to go down because he expected Lampard to stick his foot out and he didn’t want that contact. The foot never came, so there was no foul, but you can understand why Ronaldo wanted to avoid a potential crunching tackle. However, as it stood it was a horrible dive, one that probably should’ve earned him a yellow card. Instead it earned him a free kick. (As an aside, Ronaldo’s yellow card came later, when he stayed on his feet when Salomon Kalou came at him with a two footed tackle that hit all ball. Had Mike Riley followed the rules of the game, that should’ve been a yellow card, as – ball or no ball – a two footed, studs first tackle is a yellow card. Ronaldo pointed this out and was booked for it.)

Riley kept rewarding players for going down in this game, interrupting play at any opportunity and awarding plenty of yellow cards – two to United players for pointing out mistakes he and his assistants had made. Rio Ferdinand got a yellow for complaining about Anelka being allowed a big goal scoring opportunity even though he was clearly off side and the other to Ronaldo for the above mentioned incident.

Diving is annoying and it needs to be cracked down upon. It starts with the referees and with weak referees like Mike Riley, diving will continue to sully the beautiful game.

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Tags: Chelsea, Christiano Ronaldo, Gary Neville, Manchester United, Michael Ballack, Mike Riley, Nicolas Anelka, refereeing

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