I would like to point out two things. One is that Ibra was horrible against Shaktar today. He isnt improving his tag as a big game flop.

Secondly we get to watch Ibra put in 180 ineffective minutes against Inter! oh the irony!

Well, the gobbi did make the final in 2003. And they beat Madrid both home and away last season in the CL. Calciopoli aside, it's a good (very good) squad. Madrid won their league the year Capello was there, so they've achieved domestically even if they crash and burn in the CL.

In what sense would a two game ban decision be illogical????????????????

I would agree and disagree with the first part. His performance wasn't exactly magical, indeed, but he worked a LOT harder than I remember - I saw him closing defenders down, working to retrieve loose balls - his workrate has definitely increased.

The only reason Barca signed him was because there was no Hollywood signature left bar him in Serie A or England. All the available A listers had already been taken, mostly by Real Madrid, and Ibra was the only one left.

Eto'o is a superior player - maybe doesn't have the periodic magic of Ibra, but is more consistent and does it on all occasions.

Because other cases are being conveniently ignored. It's also illogical because 'why now'? Why suddenly now? For example, why did Gilardino not receive the same ban when he dived at Celtic Park? Because Gordon Smith wasn't in charge and didn't make a fuss about it at the time.

Footballers dive, it happens. They should be reprimanded internally by their clubs in the case of it - because doing it now opens floodgates the authorities will not be able to control.

Can you imagine the number of footballers who will be charged with diving? It wouldn't be feasible.

Nah, this will be a one off, and will probably be forgotten in a week or two - like I say, I will be interested to see if Celtic (or indeed any team) has players who dive after this - will Uefa or Gordon Smith say a word?

No chance - because not a word has been said about the 3 dives which happened in the Super Cup tonight.

Gilardino didnt get rewarded a penalty whereas Eduardo did (and scored the goal). Gila got a yellow card as well I believe. So, not the same.

It is actually. Footballers get booked for intent in fouling, even if they didn't actually make contact - they can be sent off for raising their hand even if they don't hit. So why would the rules be different here? If a player 'intends' to cheat, the crime is the same just like if they 'intend' to foul but miss. Whether or not they yield a penalty or whatever is not relevant.

Well Eduardo got away with it while Gila didn't, so he should receive a bigger punishment for getting away with it when he had the opportunity to tell the referee it wasn't a foul. Just my opinion though.

I think if this were any other team but Celtic you wouldn't be so passionate about the subject Danny

If only candour was as consistent in football as inconsistency

Part of the beauty of football is bias

But being serious, I've been on the 'wrong' end of 3 of these incidents now, the only 3 which have apparently happened to this extent.

No wonder I'm getting a little tired of it, including its total inconsistent targeting.

Well, I personally think the Celtic coach had every right to complain, it was a blatant dive, the penalty shouldn't have been given.

And now that they've took this step, they don't have any other choice other then to be consistant in their persute to stop diving.

haha i loved his dive in the match today Ibra Ibra Ibra yet another big game and nothing .......

Yeah that seems to be what's going to happen, must have been a mistake on the presenters part as I heard he'd already been suspended. I'm sure it'll happen as it was 100% dive. There's a difference between going down easy and diving, but there was zero contact, so it's certainly a dive.

EDIT: being listening to some phones ins from Arsenal fans on the incident. It gets quite sad when their only defense is "Well somebody else has dived befre and didn't get punished". Oh dear. It was such a bad dive I think he should be banned from International matches too.

So you're basically saying that dives should never be punished because the first dive that ever happened was not punished. I'm sorry but that's just stupid. It has to happen sometime!!

Then they should have made it clear before the campaign started.

(I'm sure you would not even care if it was not an Arsenal player) The point is this should not happen. OK I agree they should have announced punishments before the start of the season but that does not make it any less of an unfair play so that punishment is perfectly justified. In my opinion it should be heavier from now on.

Exactly, had this been for example Torres I'm sure no Arsenal fan would be having a fit over it...

And you wouldn't if this had happened to Pato?

Personally, if Pato had dived (or Pippo or Huntelaar or Borriello), I'd want them to be punished because their doing so shames the club.

Even if no-one else was?

It should be consistent (ie if Pippo gets a suspension for diving, then Eto'o should get one too when he dives).

This is hypothetical and I'm not trying to sound smart but I would have not objection at all. And even if I did I would be wrong. It's unfair and it must be punished whether it was punished before or not, what does that have to do with anything anyway? It will help everyone in the long run.

That does not make any sense to me AT ALL.

How does that matter? Is it unfair? ****ING YEAH. Then is must be punished, period. The travesty is that no one has been punished before not that Eduardo will be punished now.

It has to start at some point and I'd love to hear you say what you're saying now if a player had dived against Arsenal and was to miss the second leg due to a ban. I'd love to hear you say "hey it's not fair no one has been punished before, let him play again and let him dive again and of course do not punish him because you did not punish him the first time either"... are you kidding me? Don't you see how constipated this sounds?

Get over the fact that it was an Arsenal player. I'm not better than you and it's possible that I would say the same things if it was a Milan player but it's not and I'm standing here in a neutral position and I think what you say is retarded.

PS I love you

I'll try once more: If you're going to punish players for diving, you have to punish them ALL, and you've got to make it clear before the season starts that from now on divers will be persecuted after matches based on video evidence. You can't suddenly come charging out with a totally new concept, I'd had no objection if I had known of the consequences of diving before the match, but I feel we've been used to make an example to the rest of europe, and yes, I do think that's bloody unfair.

What dst said:


Regarding the consistancy you're referring to. It's something that we'll have to see if it happens in the future, they're obviously not going to punish every player that dives because if that were the case every player out ther would be suspended, being consistant is when a player gets punished for effecting the outcome of a game due to a dive.

So dives will only be punished if they play a blatant part in the outcome of a game? There's so many fallacies to that I don't know where to start. What about dives that result in suspensions or sending-offs, the break-up of a promising attack, time-wasting etc?

Fishdoll gets out his popcorn.

I'm not saying its right, but its unrealistic to suspend every dive. Sending offs do effect the outcome of a game and even suspensions, so they would fall under the catagory I mentioned. But really banning every player for every dive he makes is just something that would never happen

I can agree with the rule in general, but if it is to be implemented UEFA should have said so beforehand, not suddenly passing a completely new punishment and singling out a player as a cheat.

While I'm happy that he is rightfully being punished, I can see why Locke and Arsene are annoyed. You can't just start now without any prior warning. Imagine if Pato took his shirt off after he scored the winner in the derby.. but UEFA decided it was an automatic red for red card and they gave him a ban after the game, would we be happy? No.

No surprises though, UEFA just making up a rule to punish an English club. Platini out, he's useless.

In my view, a dive deserves a two-match ban (even more) so it all stops there. It's a correct decision, that's it. Like I said, the travesty is that they have not punished anyone until now not that it happened now.
So shouldn't Rooney be punished today for his dive? And why not, just because no one has been punished before?

We should drop this here though, we made out view clear.


It's ridiculous if they don't go on with this and I disagree with you, they should punished every ****ing diver out there, that's the only way it's going to stop. I'd say if a dive wins a team the match they should also later lose it by default.

Its not something I agree with either, but can you really see UEFA or any other FA for that matter banning every player for every dive? We'd end up having to postpone weeks of matches because all the players would be out serving bans.

No I believe it would be the end of diving.

Can't see it happening though, even if I do agree with you

Anybody see Eboue's dive in todays game?

It was a million times worse than Eduardo's, fortunately the referee didn't fall for it. Should he be banned for 2 games?

Yes, just because I can't stand him though.

Yes, don't you think he should?

Yes.

But it'd ruin football for a while, some players would only play about 20 games a year!

I think if they were consistent with the punishments the players would stop doing this in less than a month. It's not hard to do but it's not going to happen...

Because the man in charge can't do his job properly. Platini out.

It's not just Platini, what did the men before him do?

The one thing I do not get is why UEFA and FIFA are so badly against the use of technology. I think it's ruining the game. Who does uncertainty serve??

I dream of the day a challenge system will be applied. Just like in NFL. If there was such a thing, to step on a recent incident, Boruc would just ask for a challenge and the penalty call would not stand. It's as simple as that. It would also serve the other way, we would not see the players complain because if for example Boruc was so sure he did not touch Eduardo then he would challenge the call... otherwise he would just shut up...

Damn the game is still played as when it was created.

I agree with what you're saying, but it creates even more trouble, in my opinion.

Okay, so at the moment we have some bad calls and incidents. This is what makes football so great, this is what you talk about when you go down the pub with your mates, no other sport has it. The NFL use a challenge system, but it comes down to the judgement on the official that views the replay. I can't count how many times they've got it wrong even with the use of replays, it'd cause even more trouble.

(from acmilan.com)

Here's the official player list submitted to UEFA from Milan:

LISTA UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE A.C. MILAN 2009-2010
01/09/2009
MILANO - Portieri: Dida, Abbiati, Storari, Roma.
Difensori: Kaladze, Onyewu, Nesta, Zambrotta, Jankulovski, Thiago Silva, Oddo, Antonini.
Centrocampisti: Gattuso, Seedorf, Flamini, Abate, Pirlo, Ambrosini.
Attaccanti: Pato, Inzaghi, Huntelaar, Borriello, Di Gennaro, Ronaldinho.

+Dida, Oddo
-Bonera, Favalli

Hmm, not sure about that. We need more keepers.

Is Bonera dead or do all of our players and staff let steam off on him?

We only listed 24 players. Don't get why we didn't put Bonera on the list, even if he was injured.

And then in Celtic's following match Aiden McGeady was sent off for...diving. No joke. And guess what, the Celtic coach Mowbray, rather than condemning his player, defended him entirely and flat out refused to watch any replays.



Not going to happen. Two dives in Celtic's following game, and one went completely unpunished and not a word of condemnation against it.

There is no consistency, and it's all utterly hypocritical.

This had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with Celtic being dreadful losers.

That's called honesty and dignity, something I would like to think Milan have in abundance (outwith certain individuals) and that I know Rangers do - our striker Kyle Lafferty dived rather disgracefully and the club subsequently fined him, condemned him gently and ensured he would apologise.

This is not something a lot of clubs do, they are hypocritical and undignified and have no interest in being honest.

Was Celtic's following match a UEFA match or a match that was under the Scottish FA? This makes a big difference, just because UEFA took this step does not mean every FA is going to do the same thing