|
Cut it out
FIFA tells players to stop diving
Posted: Sunday July 05, 1998 06:18 PM
| |
Argentina's Ariel Ortega (right) was booked for his dive in the quarterfinals against the Netherlands. Later in the match, he received a red card and was sent off for head-butting goalkeeper Edwin Van der Sar (AP) |
PARIS (Reuters) -- The World Cup can be a springboard to greatness,
but FIFA issued a warning on Sunday to players who attempt to dive or act
their way to victory.
"There does seem to be a little bit of an epidemic of it at the
moment," said FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper after Argentina's
Ariel Ortega was booked in the quarterfinal against the Netherlands
on Saturday for taking a dive.
His theatrical plunge could have earned the South Americans a
match-winning penalty in the 88th minute. Instead, the influential
playmaker was booked and then sent off for head-butting goalkeeper Edwin
Van der Sar. The red card earned him a three-match ban.
Van der Sar threw himself backward as if he had been poleaxed in the
incident.
Cooper backed the experienced Mexican referee Arturo Brizio Carter
for producing the yellow and red cards.
"It's cheating, it's a yellow card," he said.
Ortega's acting was the latest of several Oscar winning performances
at the tournament, some punished and others not, that showed goalkeepers do
not have a monopoly on diving.
Cooper said FIFA was concerned about the incidents and what he called
"reciprocal cheating."
"It's one of those things that escalates," Cooper said. "I do it to
you and you do it back to me. All you can do is to appeal to their sense of
fair play that they don't start it.
"Once it starts, it spreads very, very quickly like a wildfire. The
referee has to stop it at the beginning or attempt to do so. It's very
difficult.
"A lot of players are damned good at it, it's not easy to distinguish
between a genuine foul and a dive."
Argentine captain Diego Simeone has taken a starring role in several
of the incidents as the leading actor responsible for two sendings off and
winning one penalty.
Simeone was the man who got England's David
Beckham sent off in the second-round clash after the Argentine player had
felled the midfielder. He also got Dutch defender Arthur Numan dismissed on
Saturday afternoon.
Beckham had kicked Simeone in retaliation while he was lying on the
pitch and the Argentine fell backward.
"I think he made a mistake," said Pele afterward of Danish referee
Kim Nielsen decision to eject Beckham. "I don't think he saw the incident
properly and Simeone is a very good actor."
Simeone's own Inter Milan teammate Gianluca Pagliuca, the Italian
goalkeeper, agreed with that.
"I know Simeone well and he made a drama out of it," Pagliuca said.
The Dutch had complained about divers long before they lost Numan,
complaining about Mexican actors in the first round.
Striker Luis Hernandez drew particular ire in another incident
involving Numan when he took a dive in the penalty area as the ball ran
away from him and the defender bore down.
Numan already had a yellow card at that point.
"He tried to get me sent off," he said later.
"It's very irritating what these guys do," added Jaap Stam. "They are
on the floor writhing, trying to stitch you up."
The Dutch also fell victim to the Belgian Lorenzo Staelens in the
first round in an incident that had Patrick Kluivert sent off. Kluivert was
in the wrong for elbowing the Belgian, who nonetheless crashed to the
ground as if knocked out.
Cooper said he was surprised to hear of one coach who told his
players, "If you get a chance to do it, do it."
Said Cooper, "That is something we can only totally condemn."
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
| 
