Soccer players aren’t born diving. It’s not like Cristiano Ronaldo stepped out of his mother’s womb and tripped over the doctor’s leg, rolling around in agony until a referee awarded a free kick. At some point during the course of Cristiano Ronaldo’s career, something happened to him and the rest of his contemporaries that provided the right incentives to dive whenever presented with the opportunity.
Speaking of divers, Didier Drogba is playing pickup soccer with some friends and brushes against a defender. Do you expect his hulking frame to crumble to the ground? If you believe, like I do, that he doesn’t go to ground in these circumstances, you’ve got to wonder what it is that leads to his vulnerability in matches that matter.
The difference between Drogba’s pickup match and English Premier League (EPL) matches is that EPL matches mean something. For Drogba, ensuring that Chelsea finishes as high in the table as possible while maintaining a level of play that elevates his personal status requires taking advantage of every possible opportunity to win. As the cost of losing matches or face increases, so does his propensity for diving.
The cost of losing has increased exponentially over the years. These days each place in the final EPL standings is worth almost £1 million. For many clubs, losing the money at stake can be crippling. When Manchester United won the league back in 1993, they recived a winners’ check for £815,210. Nottingham Forest finished the 1993 season at the bottom of the table, collecting £37,055. Last year, Manchester United brought in a whopping £15,220,000 just for winning the league. This year Chelsea will be receiving a nice check for just over £16 million. Portsmouth, this year’s worst team, will be awarded £800,424. Victories clearly mean a lot more these days. And if victories mean more, so does every opportunity to gain an advantage.
Diving for an advantage is not a new invention. But I do recall a time when the slightest contact with an opposing player’s shadow didn’t instinctively lead to writhing around on the pitch in agony. Today, the diving pandemic seems to be touching everyone, even defenders and goalkeepers.
We’ve progressed from a time when only a handful of players dived to everyone diving – yes, even English players. No one can credibly claim anymore that it’s just the foreign players who embellish, even though the English media thoroughly enjoys demonizing foreign players for diving while regularly downplaying the misdeeds of English players. Over the past few years, it’s become clear that the current crop of top English players, from John Terry at the back, through Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in midfield to Wayne Rooney up top, are all prone to exaggeration. The game is no longer about pride and hard work; it’s about gaining any advantage possible to get further. It’s not just Drogba and Eduardo; they’re all doing it.
It’s precisely for this reason that Thierry Henry’s handball against Ireland in World Cup qualifying wasn’t particularly that outrageous. The anger from the Hand of Henry derived from the fact that Henry wasn’t caught, not that he cheated. The hypocrisy from commentators bordered on comical given that we watch cheaters every week, barely mustering enough energy for fake outrage. The fact of the matter is that gaining an advantage by any means necessary has become the norm, even in England.
Players have been diving well before the crazy money arrived. So it’s not just about the money. For some players, before serious money took over, their currency was style. Take a look and you’ll notice a correlation between flashy players and diving. Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Dani Alves and basically anyone who does more stepovers than necessary will also fall more than necessary. For these players, interfering with the aesthetics of their game will be met with diving and other forms of embellishment. For these players, their style is their brand, and their brand has always been their meal ticket. So the Cristiano Ronaldos of the world take every advantage to uphold the sanctity of their brand. They either beat you and win, or fall over because you cheated. Either way, they win. That’s the diver’s modus operandi.
But now it’s not just the flashy players who need the advantage. Now it’s everyone, and money may explain why all the kids are doing it. It’s too costly not to.
The more money that comes into the game, the less likely we’ll see a reversal in this trend. The larger the global audience for the top leagues, the more likely players will continue diving to maintain their personal and club’s status. And the more frequently players dive, the greater the likelihood that kids growing up will seek to emulate their heroes. It’s a vicious circle.
To dive or not to dive. Clearly, players have chosen the former. The advantage derived from diving at this point clearly outweighs the advantages of staying on your feet, or having pride, or whatever it was that encouraged players to stand instead of fall.
Now that the diving trend has momentum, it will be hard to stop. So get used to players diving, especially in big matches and in major leagues. Sadly, this is only the beginning.
