Stop making pathetic excuses otherwise we'll never get rid of diving

There aren't many things which get my goat more in the beautiful game than diving.

Two years ago, FIFA's Vice President Jim Boyce described diving as a 'cancer' within football. It has also been labelled as 'a dark art' and 'a blight on the game'. Call it what you will, it's cheating - end of.

And, sadly, it's never been more prevalent in English football than it is now.

Wayne Rooney diving against Preston
Photo: BBC Sport

And once again it was in the headlines this week after Wayne Rooney 'won' a penalty for Manchester United in their FA Cup tie against Preston on Monday through simulation.

But what really irked me about the incident, wasn't the fact that Rooney dived, but some of the pathetic excuses that have been wielded out to defend his dive.

The most notable of which came from England manager Roy Hodgson who denied that his captain dived and instead claimed that Rooney was instead taking 'evasive action'. I don't think I've heard anything more absurd in my life.  Surely evasive action means getting out of the way, not falling to the floor? I think it's really shameful that the coach of the England national team should go on national television and hide from the truth and give a half-arsed excuse to defend his captain. Roy Hodgson could've made a real statement that night by saying "we at the FA have a respect campaign which has been set up to stamp out cheating and we don't want any of our players diving." 

But the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy too. I bet if we see a Spanish player or an Italian player diving in a game against England at next year's European Championships we won't see Hodgson describing it as 'evasive action', will we?

Pundits Roy Hodgson, Kevin Kilbane and Phil Neville discussing the dive after the game
Photo: BBC Sport

In his column in this Daily Mail this week former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher argued that Wayne Rooney shouldn't be criticised for his diving as 'all players cheat'. I'm sorry, since when has that ever been a reasonable excuse for someone doing something wrong? Absolutely ridiculous. If ex-pros like Jamie Carragher want to see a much fairer game, then they need to stop trying to defend players who cheat. 

So please let's stop these pathetic excuses before diving becomes an irremovable part of our game.