UEFA’s Watching You, Cheaters

I’m not sure I’ve met a single person who approves of faking injuries during the course of a game for whatever reason. Yeah, there’s “professional time wasting”, as I like to call it, when the clock is winding down and the team is trying to grind out a victory. But doesn’t this take away from the integrity of the game? UEFA seems to think so, and they’re planning on doing something about it. So they’re adding a big something to their attempt to get tough:

“Simulations aimed at deceiving the referee will be punished by a yellow card for anti-sporting behaviour,” UEFA emphasised at a seminar for the dozen men in black officiating at Euro 2008.

“Those which aren’t picked up by the referee during the game can be sanctioned later by the disciplinary authorities,” European football’s governing body added.

This means they’ll be able to use video evidence to crack down on simulation and faking injuries throughout the games. It’ll be a lot further to judge the latter, but in the event someone pulls a stunt like this, let’s hope they get suspended.

And no info on the actual penalties yet, but perhaps frequent offenders will be sat for a game or something. Seems fair enough.

This isn’t just a minor step, such as handing out more yellows in the event of simulation. This is going into the vault after the game and using replay to get a better understanding of actions and intent….and then cracking down. A major step considering it’s being implemented during a major tournament. And perhaps, another step towards replay in general.

But is this a good thing? For guys like Pavel Nedved, Arjen Robben and Cristiano Ronaldo, probably not (Alberto Gilardino isn’t going to the Euros, so no worries there). But for the betterment of the game, the experience? Absolutely. At the very least, even if the suits don’t actually use any video replay evidence, a player just might think twice about going to ground sans-contact the next time around with the thought a watchful eye is looming.

Hopefully this limits the number of tributes to Greg Louganis throughout our time in Swissaustria, then let’s hope it carries over.