Fixing Football

[Marc Overmars]

Definitely impossible to prove play-acting for fouls though. No way to prove a player wasn't hurt, I think. Even in the David Villa case that Moe described above.

Yeah there's no chance you could punish someone for pretending they were hurt. I mentioned it merely as an extreme example of the mentality involved with a footballer, it's all about gaining an advantage via the ref. It happens every week, a player might take a genuine knock, but then exaggerate it by holding his face/foot/cock or whatever just because the cameras are there and they can pressure the ref into dishing out punishment. That just doesn't happen at grass roots and if someone tried it on, they'd probably get their legs broken for real the next time.