I can only respond to this regarding my own approach to diving, which I think is a fairly common one.
Now, if I believe, with certainty, that a player has taken a dive I WILL caution him. The laws of the game state that this MUST happen; it is not an option.
However, what if I'm not certain? Referees aren't going to caution players for diving unless we're absolutely certain (and even then, the HAL refs often get it wrong - as McCallister discovered last week).
An experienced referee will often have a gut feeling when he looks at something. Sometimes a player may go down in the penalty area, and it may well look like a penalty but something in the referee's gut just tells him that there was something a bit 'off' about it. As such, the referee isn't entirely convinced it was a foul - but also can't be absolutely certain it was a dive, even though there may be a suspicion. These are the sort of cases when a referee may just tell a player to get up - when I do it, I'm basically saying 'I think you took a dive, but I'm not entirely certain, so I'll let you off but I'm also telling you not to try pulling the wool over my eyes'.
I have no doubt that sometimes a referee will do this because he's chickening out of issuing the caution, but often it's just because the referee can't be absolutely certain it was a dive.
Does that make sense?
Whether a player appeals for a penalty certainly is something that can be considered (unless the referee makes his decision immediately, without waiting to see) - if a player doesn't appeal it may mean that the player didn't dive but just fell down naturally, even though it wasn't a dive. However, it may be that the player also wants the ref to think that - if referee's using the presence or lack of an appeal as determining factor in a dive, then players will abuse this and dive without appealling - all the benefits and none of the risk.
On top of everything else, it's just a bloody hard thing to get right - unlike the spectators and other players, the referee needs to be absolutely certain and the referee also realises that while a player may fall awkwardly, it certainly doesn't mean he's taken a dive.
I absolutely hate it when referees fail to punish blatant diving and there is absolutely no excuse for it, but I also realise that there are often times when a referee isn't certain but is just going with his gut - and that, IMO, is good refereeing. When the ref knows it was a dive and doesn't caution, that's piss-poor refereeing.
goingtoadisco said:
Anyone having trouble with iraq goals ?
It wasn't working for our game last weekend