Quote Lord God Jose Mourinho="Lord God Jose Mourinho"Not really. I've made this point many times before.
If you take Ronaldo, for example. He may have dived 20 times. But he'll have been fouled 200 times without getting a free kick in the same time as those 20 dives happened. English football supporters regard diving as the worst type of cheating, but kicking a player in the air is fine by them. I don't agree with that, I think it's retarded.
I think that often a tackler will impede an opponent just enough to cause him to lose possession, but not enough to actually bring him down. Many refs won't give a free kick unless a player goes down. That forces a player to go down just to win a free kick that they should've got anyway.
IMO the biggest reason that players shouldn't dive is because if you're caught diving, you'll end up paying for it in future. You might win a penalty in one game, but you'll have 5 blatant pens not given after that when the refs see what you've done.'"
I can see where you coming from here, the only problem with giving a freekick because a player has had to avoid contact is that it is too subjective IMO.
Loads of footballers and fans are generally thick and dont actually know what a foul is anyway. When I used to ref all I would ever get when I gave a freekick was "I was going for the ball". Well yes but you didn't get it did you nob!
I nearly got it into a fight with an opposition player because his team mate fouled one our players, the ref said "I know you were going for the ball but you fouled the player" so his mate started screaming at the ref "You've just said he went for the ball!!! How can it be a foul?!!!" When I pointed out he didn't get the ball and made contact with my team mate he seemed to think this translated to me saying I'd just shagged his mum.
