How to fix football [soccer]

So the FIFA World Cup has moved into the knock-out stages and we find the same problems as have plagued world soccer for the last 1000s of years...Apparently drawings of a game that resembles modern football has been found in a Chinese military manual. I am sure that in that manual there is also a drawing of a Han-dynasty soldier taking a dive after incidental contact with a competitor.

Let's face it, the players have only to gain from diving. Yellow cards for diving are very rare, and even if they are given out 1 out of every 20 dives, it's still statistically beneficial to dive. The US got knocked out of WC2006 because of a dive. Australia just lost directly because of a dive. Literally 100s of dives will lead to free kicks and goals in this year's cup. No other sport has such a culture of acceptance of cheating - hockey has it to a degree, but it is no where near as problematic as in soccer. But, what to do? The action is so fast, the refs can not be expected to see every dive. Of course not, the field is big and the action is fast - we can not expect the ref to be able to judge everytime some guy flies through the air and crumples in a heap. Usually the benefit of the doubt goes to the player that is now rolling around on the ground in "agony."

I have two proposals to fix this problem. Fix one is my favorite, but I think that fix two is probably more realistic (please keep in mind, these are my proposals for FIFA events - I think they should be implemented at all levels, but that is up to the individual federations - YOU LISTENING FA, FFF, and FIGC? Oh yeah, and UEFA, you guys may want to pay attention too):

FIX ONE

Active scouting by officials from the above organizations to create a player-by-player list about each player's relative "diving propensity (DP)." I think we could easily place this in a grid as such:
1. Player only falls in case of vital organ rupture or structural support system failure
2. Player is unlikely to dive, but will if stakes are high enough
3. Player usually stays up, but has shown an incidence of fair weather diving.
4. Player has high likelihood to fall under the smallest provocation, especially within 20 meters and in penalty area.
5. Italian

Players would be graded based on previous performances that would more heavily weigh recent matches than old matches. This would be done to attempt to convince the players to improve their game. If a player has a shoddy past record, but has played 4 or 5 games without serious incident, they would be able to move to a 3 rating. A 1 rating would probably be based on a life-time of play and would not be able to be earned after only a few solid showings.

How could we place this system into practice? Fairly easily actually. A group of international experts (or in the case of national leagues - a panel of non-biased arbitrators) would review game tape and make their assessment. After all of the assessements were in the scores would be averaged to create a rating given to the nearest 10th. A player may have a 2.6 rating, meaning he is better than average, but not to be completely trusted.
The referees would be given a list at the beginning of each game to memorize and would base their calls on this. Say player A has a rating of 5. He is running along and falls. The referee would look at the player and if there was no visible blood or visible broken bones, the call would not be made, because it is more than likely that the player is faking it. I could, for example, see an entire game against the Italian national team, with nary a call in their favor.
On the other hand a player that is ranked 1 or close to it would always be given the benefit of the doubt for that specific match. If he fell, it would automatically be a free kick (and possibly a yellow card).
The beauty of the system is that after the match the league would examine the video and adjust the players score. The players would all have a positive reason to stop diving. I can also just picture a player going to the ref and crying for a non-call and the ref pulling his scouting report out for justification.

FIX TWO

This one may be more practical: Any significant dive would result in a fine, maybe small at first but increasing with each offense. Any dive that led to a yellow card for the opposing player would automatically be a one-game suspension. Any dive that led to a red card for the opposing player would automatically be a three-game suspension. Repeat offenders would also receive increasingly strong suspensions (3, 5, 7, 10...). Any dive that results in a penalty at 93+ minutes of a tie elimination game would result in said player being sent to the city or country of the affected team and be forced to go from bar to bar and introduce himself - for 24 hours. No police protection would be given.

People are calling for instant replay in soccer - I don't think that a half-dozen maybe goals in the last 10 years is as big of a problem as these guys falling all over the place for no apparent reason. People over here, in Europe, say that diving is a "part of the game." They don't allow doping, but both allow one player to gain the advantage by flopping on the ground like a cod on land. Show me the difference and I will shut up.

I like fix one, but I doubt it would ever happen, but fix two is truly possible. Other sports review tape of games to make decisions about penalties. The truth is that the pitch is too big for one or two or three refs to be able to make split-second decisions. The current system very much favors the divers (hey, Italy's in the quarter finals) and the only way to be able to fix this for the leagues to step up and make a decision to put a system into place to dissuade the disgusting and unsportsmanlike play that is so prevalent in the game today.


This video is a bit dated (Euro 2004), but it's still funny.