Put a stop to bad acting at World Cup

Terry Baddoo is co-host of World Sport, the international sports show that airs live on CNN International. He will regularly contribute Postcards from South Korea to CNNSI.com during the World Cup.

SEOUL -- During a break in the football action, I've just watched Lennox Lewis complete his resume by putting an end to the Mike Tyson legend with a measured and devastating performance as brutal as it was clinical.

I mention this only for the fact that both are men, the same species as the footballers inhabiting this World Cup, and both are presumably cursed with the same sensitivity to pain that all men possess, however well they manage to hide it.

So why is that Lennox, and Mike in particular in this case, were repeatedly able to take vicious assaults on their bodies and come back for more, while the slightest hint of contact on many players in these finals produces a reaction like they've just had their legs amputated with a light beer for anaesthetic?

It's pathetic. FIFA has been at pains to stress that diving will not be tolerated. It's also banned what it calls "simulation," in other words faking a foul to get a player booked or red carded (as Brazil's multimillionaire Rivaldo did against Turkey, incurring a "whopping" fine of US$6,000). But why don't the powers that be outlaw plain bad acting?

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Every game I've watched so far has produced at least half a dozen overreactions that would be leading candidates for a "Golden Raspberry," the annual awards for Hollywood's worst movies and movie performances. Have these men no pride? Or is their threshold of pain so low that breathing on them causes them to fall down in a grimacing heap clutching whatever body part comes to hand first?

Before you say it, I know the players are not fighters, and that it takes a very particular kind of man to hit and be hit for a living. But I played football at a fairly competitive level. I know that sometimes a crunching tackle or a stray elbow in the face can hurt. But, as I recall, except in extreme cases, the pain rarely caused me to roll around the field like an extra in a second-rate war movie. Besides, have you ever been really hurt, even off the sports field? Let me tell you from experience, the pain is numbing and tends to make you lie pretty still.

So let's stop this nonsense and encourage players to act like real men instead of Bambi.

Why not make it the rule that if you're injured enough to stop play, you have to be off the field for at least two minutes unless the alleged foul warranted a card from the referee.

Let's see how many overwrought performances we'd get then. I know it's like a double whammy to the injured party, and I know it might be open to abuse from the opposition. But in my opinion, it would be far preferable to the embarrassing amateur dramatics we're suffering at the moment.

 

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