Quote Originally Posted by mic22 View Post
I think diving is a slightly different issue: it's about trying to milk a particular situation, possibly making intentional contact with a defender to obtain a penalty, exploiting an inexperienced or clumsy defender. I don't condone or endorse diving, just to be clear, but I think it's done with a "justifiable" purpose.

Simulating an injury is on a totally different level imo: too often we see players rolling and screaming in agony, then having a quick peep at the ref, and then suddenly recover to full fitness once they see that no action is taken. In this case, ref should assess their condition after the "injury" and give a straight red if they reckon a simulation occurred. This would fix the problem.
How do you suppose the ref does this - considering the arguments happening at the moment related to their ability to apply the rules of the game how do you expect them to be able to assess if a player is injured or not. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have much training in that area. Also some times other factors can impact a players response (Im definitely not saying that was the case on the weekend) hypothetically suppose that odonovan had poked him in the eye, his actions could of been a reaction to that, how does the ref then say he was injured or not and rule on it, how do we decide what is an appropriate action to that injury. Injury shouldn't factor into the equation, if the ref thinks the action is worth a card they give it (and VAR overides them) and then match review panel can act if they deem necessary and we all move on.