Faking Injuries in Soccer

I wrote about this in 2006 but it's still happening and drives me nuts.

In the 102nd minute of Costa Rica-Netherlands, the Dutch were controlling the ball in the attacking side of the field. All of a sudden the Costa Rican players started pointing to the other half of the field. The ref notices and then instructs a Dutch player to play the ball over the sidelines. A player in a white jersey was down on the pitch.

You know how this story ends. A trainer comes out and after a minute of standing around, the Costa Rican player is fine to stay in the game. Costa Rica takes the throw-in, and then plays the ball gently down toward the Dutch goalie. The end result for the viewer is a minute wasted and the Dutch were forced to sacrifice field position.

This may be Fair Play but it is not fair play.

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I have two solutions.

Solution #1

This proposal is utterly simple. The ref is mandated not to instruct an attacking team to interrupt play. If a team takes possession and one of their players is down on the grass they have the opportunity to kick the ball out and sacrifice a possession or choose to attack with 10 men to see if their player just has the wind knocked out of him. This removes any instances where a team is expected to return the ball to the opposition.

Solution #2

This is the idea I floated in 2006. Teams without possession are given permission to request the ball out of play. For simplicity, I would require a player to notify the ref of the request. The caveat is that you request the ball to be played out, that player must be subbed out and you may not make a request if you are out of your three subs.

What we have now is a farce. It encourages players on a team without the ball to go down without any risk.