Today I would like to praise Brendan Rodgers for his calm, considered and accurate reaction to the media reporting of some of the weekends controversial incidents. Tonu Pulis gave his verdict on Luis Suarez after the game on Sunday and I’m not saying I disagree with what he said, Suarez quite clearly took a dive and in an ideal world this sort of thing should be punished with a ban. But what Pulis didn’t do was condemn the overly aggressive tackles from his side (including a stamp that should have received a red card and a three game ban), and his short memory didn’t stretch back a couple of weeks to when Peter Crouch deliberately handballed in scoring a goal for Stoke against Man City. The difference? Crouch cheated and it affected the outcome of the game, Suarez attempted to cheat and failed, it didn’t affect the outcome of the game.
Rodgers’ didn’t defend Suarez from the diving allegation as it would be a pointless defence, the evidence is there clearly on TV and it’s being shown on Sky Sports News enough times to make sure everybody sees it. I’ve felt in recent weeks that Suarez has cut down on his theatrics and his antics on Sunday disappointed me, I’m hoping this will be a watershed moment for him and he will move forward and learn from this, when controversy doesn’t follow him he is one of the best players in the league and a really exciting talent to watch. It wasn’t Suarez’ actions against Stoke that Rodgers chose to focus on, it was the subsequent media reporting.
He clearly and calmly stated, without naming names, that another high profile player did the same thing on Sunday and it didn’t make the headlines. He also spoke about how players, again without mentioning names, caused or potentially caused opponents injuries and this also didn’t gain the same sort of media headlines as those generated by our Uruguayan. He’s not wrong. I saw an hour of Sky Sports News on Monday, between 1 and 2pm, and, thanks to the wonders of being able to rewind TV it took me less than two minutes to count up that during the hour they showed Suarez’ dive NINE times. I then had to go on to youtube to find footage of Gareth Bale’s dive against Aston Villa as that wasn’t shown even once. And that’s not even going into the front page coverage most of the Monday sports pull outs gave to Suarez, while not mentioning Bale. Ok, Suarez has previous, but so does Bale, he is a serial diver and condemning one man so heavily and not another shows a bias in reporting, whether the media will admit it or not.
Diving is wrong and needs eradicating from the game, retrospective punishments would be the only way to go, leave it as a yellow card during the game as it is so hard for refs to get right due to the cunning nature of today’s footballer and watch the video afterwards and hand out bans. It’s not always possible to prove without doubt that a player has dived but the FA disciplinary panel work to the balance of probabilities (as we have become very familiar with) when reaching a conclusion so if a player claims he slipped they can simply say ‘we don’t believe you slipped’ and ban him. This is what the FA can do about it, now how about the media.
It’s really simple for the media, just report it as it is, don’t sensationalise it, don’t pick on certain players, pick on everyone who does it. If you’re going to have a picture of Suarez on your back page for diving then put a picture of Gareth Bale next to it. And make sure you have images of Danny Welbeck, Ashley Young and Eden Hazard ready for the next time they commit this horrendous sin. And come down just as hard on people who falsely accuse players of cheating. At Norwich last week Suarez was pushed in the back, elbowed and then trodden on by a defender who knew full well he’d committed a foul, who then turned round and asked the ref to book Suarez for diving. Fans and pundits alike say it’s hard for refs to know if a foul has happened as players go to ground too easily, by the same token defenders reacting like that to committing a foul makes it equally as hard for refs to know what has occurred. If cheating is such a sin then accusing a fellow professional when you know they haven’t done anything wrong is just as far out of order and should be subjected to the same scrutiny and headlines.
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