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You know why players dive, I know why players dive, everyone knows why players dive. Even my Mum knows. They dive because a penalty is the most disproportionate reward for foul play in any sport. A penalty is pound for pound possibly the most significant and unfair event in any sport really.

Let's loooooooook at the evidence. A wicket in cricket won't settle the game, a home-run in baseball won't settle that game and so on for most other sports; a touch-down in Mercan football, a basket in basketball, a goal in ice hockey etc etc. A goal in football however, can settle the game because it's a low scoring game, so diving to win a penalty becomes almost common sense. We'd all rob banks if the punishment was 20 hours community service no?

If you can con the referee and win the game, the only cost will be some retrospective tutting from the analysts in the studio and some verbal abuse from the opposing fans. Serial offenders are labeled with a diving tag - but footballers are subjected to so much abuse from opposing fans, sometimes their own fans, that abuse is just abuse, the specifics become irrelevant.

I think they should do away with penalties. I can't imagine what sort of a person thought they were a good idea in the first place. Probably the grandfather of whoever thought up todays incarnation of the off-side rule.

Why should a player who is fouled on the goal line in the corner of the penalty area, which at the time probably has 13 players in it, then get a free shot from 12 yards out in the middle of the goal with only the goal-keeper to beat? Nonsense.

A direct free-kick is all you should get. If the foul took place 4 yards out then so be it. The wall lines up on the goal line. There were probably five defenders on the goal line anyway when the foul took place - that's a far more realistic continuation of the play than clearing everyone out and letting the fella have a free shot at an enormous goal 12 yards out.

Simples. If you want to rid the game of diving, rid the game of the rewards for diving. Easy. Players may still dive to win free-kicks, but far less games will be settled as a direct consequence. Dives will just be seen as irritating and silly, but they'll very rarely have a significant impact on the result of the game. That's what I always say.