Footballing Theatrics: Where Does the Real Problem Lie?

Living state-side has its perks.

For instance, petrol is given away for extraordinary prices (despite my friends and neighbors insistence that it is high), and the cuisine, though not very good, comes in servings enough to last a small country several weeks.

The main downside though is the complete lack of interest in football.

I assumed that I would be able to find groups of mates or other supporters to watch World Cup matches with, but aside from the Final (where I had to explain the laws of the game to many of the people there), all hopes of this were in vain.

Now, I am used to watching Sunday morning Arsenal games alone in a room at a pub, but I truly believed the response for the largest sporting event in the world would be larger.

Several times I found myself in heated debate when the tournament came up in conversation. Many Americans believe football is boring, even without any viewing experience to verify their claims. Many do not like the low-scoring games, while others seem to think the games are long. But the one thing people here seem to despise the most is diving and the theatrical displays some players put on in the event of a foul.

There are some comparable events in American sports.

Basketball players are often guilty of diving to "draw a foul." And it makes sense. Why try to run through contact instead of falling, and in doing so gain the advantage of free throws? The difference, my American mates will point out, is that basketball players will get back up immediately unless they are really injured.

But in football, once you've won a free kick, there is still a chance the referee will book the player responsible for the foul. Staying down increases this chance. I am not trying to condone this behaviour, I am simply stating that as long as there as an advantage to be gained (from any rule in any sport), expect players to try to utilize it. Ask Luis Suarez.

So which came first, the dive or the theatrics?

In the early years of football, the game was played at a slower pace, it took a much higher degree of malice in a tackle to be considered a foul, much less a booking. But as the pace has picked up, so has the ease of which bookings and fouls come, mostly because less contact was required to knock a player from full sprint to the floor.

In the past two decades, players have begun falling just to win a rightly deserved foul, as opposed to trying to run through a challenge. The amount of injuries has also increased, again due to contact at pace, as well as the withering length of the season. Meanwhile, others began falling at minimum contact to win unfair free kicks, and diving was born.

Add on a couple of minutes of writhing in simulated pain, and now you have an unfair booking as well.

And thus is the perplexing state of the modern game the unsporting problems of diving and simulation are ironically derived from the real problems of more fouls and more injuries.

But regular viewers of football can attest to the fact that they have seen players act differently in different games.

As an Arsenal fan, I can naturally allude to the controversy of Eduardo da Silva's dive against Celtic in the second leg of the Champions League qualifiers at Emirates Stadium last season.

Eduardo clearly exaggerates the contact to win the penalty. But on numerous other occasions, I have seen Eduardo run through a rough challenge to play the ball away, like against Burnley at home last season.

After a throw in, he is caught between defenders, (both of whom are guilty of illegal contact), but instead of falling down to get a free kick in a dangerous area, he plays a clever ball to Andrey Arshavin who scored brilliantly with his left foot.

So from this observation, as well as similar ones about other players, I have drawn this conclusion: it's not the players. Yes, there are a few Cristiano Ronaldo/Alessandro del Piero types, who will act as if they were shot at even minimal contact. But for the rest of the players I've ever seen, for every dive they take, they play quite a bit of fair football.

Sunday, it finally clicked.

The problem is the referees.

Anyone who watched Sunday's poorly managed final can attest to the fact the simulation was not only tolerated by Howard Webb, but rewarded. Because Howard Webb was quick to blow the whistle and put players in the book, the advantage to be gained from this method of cheating was maximized. Because he had called fouls and drawn cards for similar plays, he was obligated later in the game to do it again.

It is this cyclical mismanagement of the game that is responsible for theatrics in football.

Referees who give players further incentive to dive are almost more responsible than the players. We've all seen games like this (think the Battle of Nurnberg in 2006) and when referees are careless with the whistle, the players take advantage.

So is the opposite true? Absolutely.

When the referees remain uninterested in the appeals of the players, perhaps even at the cost of letting a few marginal fouls go by the wayside, the players stay on their feet and play football. I've seen it time and time again.

I'm not trying to be critical of officials. I have loads of respect for them, and in reality it is still the players who are "cheating" by taking advantage of them.

But as the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." And many officials (Howard Webb included), have been fooled quite a few times.

So what's the solution?

Bookings and suspensions have been ineffective, somewhat because its a judgement call, but mainly because its hardly used. But at the end of the day, FIFA and other governing bodies need to be less forgiving of whistle-happy referees. They should also train up and coming officials to be more aware of simulation, punish accordingly, and ignorant to deceptive players.

I truly believe that if the referees keep their whistles silent and their books in their pockets, diving will eventually become a thing of the past.