A new season and a new reason not to be too cheerful

A new season brings a plethora of exciting new things to English football; Promoted and relegated teams create fresh fixtures and resurrect old rivalries, the influx of foreign stars create new heroes while emerging starlets bring hope to lower league clubs. Unfortunately with a new season there comes new schemes, so-called innovative initiatives and a brand new set of problems that once created must be addressed.

The first to fall into the media’s glare, courtesy of Eduardo and later Wayne Rooney, was diving, the new scourge of English football. For some time now it has been a bookable offence but, since the act of simulation from Arsenal’s Croatian striker, it has come the most scurrilous of crimes, now deemed punishable with a two match retrospective ban. Personally I feel for the Brazilian born forward and there is certainly some credence to his club manager’s argument against the ban. There was no forewarning before the game with Celtic nor was it another new rule, it was simply EUFA deciding to flex its muscles.

There is no doubt anywhere that diving is not only unsporting and devious but it is also highly embarrassing. To see a primed athlete dive to the floor is cringe worthy and sometimes even laughable. We, the English, seem very assured that diving is another foreign import that has infected our game like interfering directors of football, match fixing or the hair-band. I remember, following a series of Didier Drogba’s more dramatic appearances, there were rumours that John Terry had told the Ivorian to cut out the simulation as he was making himself and his team mates look stupid, now defenders are having to double up during all too often vein attempts to stop the Chelsea powerhouse. If EUFA had wished to make its mark on diving it should happened before the this years Champions League qualifiers had began or the Eduardo incident should have been the watershed, the point at which EUFA said ‘enough is enough, anymore of that and you’ll get a two match ban’. By not setting a precedent EUFA have asked for this backlash just as much as Eduardo deserved for a yellow card, not a two-game ban.

I remember, many years ago, when shirt pulling was christened the enemy of the game. On the eve of the new season every referee, club and player was informed of the consequences. Every offender was to be punished immediately with a yellow card, how long did that inscription stay on the ever-increasing scroll that is the football rules and regulations handbook? The fact is different governing bodies rule the variety of competitions we pour over week-in-week-out and they are never going to agree on every aspect of the beautiful game but a little cohesion might limit confusion and stop anyone falling foul of the laws on diving.