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FFA must match actions to words on scourge of diving

After some embarrassing theatrics in the national competition, the time has come to take a hard line on diving.

And the Oscar goes to ... City’s Neil Kilkenny for diving.
And the Oscar goes to ... City’s Neil Kilkenny for diving.

Here’s a message for Football Federation Australia: The time has come to take a hard line on diving rather than paying lip service.

Two weeks ago, The Australian revealed that A-League boss Greg O’Rourke had sent out an email to all clubs and coaches urging them to “do your bit to ensure we eradicate incidents of simulation and time wasting”.

It was a clear message that, following a spectacular opening round of the season with record crowds and television audiences, the head body was determined to ensure the credibility of the competition.

Significantly, the quality of the football, the excitement, the ratings and the attendances show no sign of dropping off after the opening four rounds. And it is only going to get bigger and better.

However, one of the few issues likely to put a dampener on things — aside from some poor refereeing and the prevalence of some crude tackling — is diving, where players too easily fall to the ground either to win a free kick or penalty, or to get a fellow professional carded or sent off.

It seems some players have not heeded the advice in the FFA letter, as we saw with the embarrassing theatrics of Melbourne City’s Neil Kilkenny in the game against Adelaide United on Friday night.

Having got into a tangle with United’s Isaias, the Socceroo collapsed to the turf and rolled around while clutching his face. Video replays showed the Spanish midfielder had placed the palm of his hand on Kilkenny’s face and may have rubbed it.

However, there wasn’t enough force from Isaias to break the top off a custard, let alone cause Kilkenny to react as though he had been struck between the eyes with a sledgehammer.

Clearly, the City player was trying to milk the incident and get his opponent, who was already on a yellow card, sent off.

Predictably, social media went into overdrive on outrage with calls for the authorities to take strong action.

However, as late as yesterday afternoon there was no movement from the powers that be, indicating either diving was again being put in the too hard basket or that their letter of a few weeks ago was just idle words.

Either way, the FFA cannot simply sit there and hope the issue will go away. Our game’s diving scourge won’t disappear unless someone has the courage to stand up and say “enough is enough”.

In 2009, FFA introduced tough, new measures aimed at naming and shaming players who dive.

Under the rule, the weekly match review panel was compelled to search for instances of simulation missed by the referee, and to ban the culprits for two weeks if they dive to win a penalty, to get an opponent sent off, or both.

A year later, they were true to their word, suspending Central Coast’s Patricio Perez and Perth Glory’s Michael Baird after they had “earned” penalties for their teams with dives.

Unfortunately, the rule has rarely been applied since.

The argument regarding Kilkenny might be that the referee saw what happened and opted not to act, thus the MRP is powerless to intervene.

Whatever the case, the incident just cannot go unpunished.

FFA has the chance to make a very strong statement.

They need to deal with it now.

If the MRP cannot act then what is stopping the FFA from charging Kilkenny with bringing the game into disrepute?

Surely that would be getting the message across to players loud and clear — “we are watching you and we will act”.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/ffa-must-match-actions-to-words-on-scourge-of-diving/news-story/7482645ef60afa0227a4680644a312dc