Solution to Flopping in Soccer

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com, @AndyDisco on Twitter

Soccer players flopping/diving/embellishing/simulating (as the euros call it) sucks. Every single person agrees except for the players. This has been the case for as long as I have watched soccer and for some reason soccerophiles think it is an unfixable problem.

Here is how to fix it. Have a team of officials review the games immediately after they end. If a player's flopping resulted in another player getting unnecessarily carded, the offending flopper will have to sit out the next game (or a half of the next game).

Since the review of the play would take place after the game is over, as opposed to an official timeout like the NFL does, it wouldn't slow down the game any, which soccerophiles are afraid of. Also under my scenario, the punishment would fit the crime. If a player flops and a foul is called, no harm done (or very little). But if the floppee gets a card, then the flopper has inflicted some damage- especially if it is a player's second yellow card (double especially if both cards resulted from flopping).

My system's post-game review works well too because the call comes not from referees on the field, wherever they may be, but instead it comes essentially from Big Brother. A player is probably correct in thinking they can fool a referee who is 30 yards away, but they'd think again about flopping when they know that a team of officials with 45 different television cameras at various heights, angles and zoom capabilities and all day long to get the call right.

People behave differently when they know cameras are watching.

How would this system not work? Why would a soccer purist not support this?




That's how I roll.