If you check his background I'm sure you'll see that even though he's american he was brought up an avid soccer fan. At least that's what Simmons would want you to believe...
Rule 1. I think makes a lot of sense. If a player's 'injury' is so bad he cant get up and holds up the game it makes a mockery to then let him straight back into the action. The alternative is to follow rugby by letting the magic sponge man onto the pitch while the game continues. I know what your saying about video evidence not being available at all levels of football but I think to start using it at the top level to punish floppers would send out the right message to then filter down. Kids just copy their hero's. Of course Blatter needs to stand by referee's, but he should also aid those in the highest profile/ most stressful matches with the use of technology that's already at these games. At the moment millions watching the TV will know if the ball crossed the line or Drogba took a dive before the ref.
No offense to anyone, but I think we're missing the point. The basic point is that American's tend to dislike sports that encourage dishonest, or "wussy" (for lack of better term) play. Ignore what he said about the Europeans causing the rise of flopping in the NBA, and just concentrate on what he says about flopping. IMO - that has a direct correlation to Soccer in America.
Americans dislike dishonesty? So why is steroidba.. er, I mean baseball, still going strong? Dishonesty hasn't really affected baseball, even though it's common knowledge that over half of the players use steroids. (yeah I know, this is a 10-month old thread.)
The amount of ball players using steroids is about nil now that MLB has instituted broad based changes in its testing policy. You don't think that Americans care that ball players used steriods? I guess that's why there was a Congressional hearing into steriods in the sport and it also explains why large numbers of baseball fans don't believe the all-time HR leader should be admitted into the HOF. Yeah, Americans really don't care that steroids were abused by ball players. Italians fixed soccer matches, yet Serie A is still well attended. I guess Italians don't care if the product in front of them is staged.
Italian crowds are somewhat low these days, maybe they do care about match fixing. Americans still pack the stadiums in baseball and NFL even though the player's all have heads bigger than their bodies.
No, it's more or less due to the fact that the Ultras have been ruining it. Earlier in the season a Lazio fan was killed by a cop bullet (accidental). The bullet was shot in the air to break up some Lazio and Juve fans from fighting at a service store. And then last year there was a cop being killed in a Palermo-Catania match. So it's not really the match fixing that's hurting the league but it's down to the fact that they're worried for their life. I would be too.
First of all Simmons isn't Joe sports fan. He's Joe Boston Fan. Boston Fans are their own cut of sports fan. Similar to others, but more self-loathing. Flopping in soccer, as in the NBA, is a problem insofar as it affects the game. We may not like to see it, but most flops are not called fouls and, I think don't really matter. The advantage soccer has is it does penalize flopping whereas the NBA does not. Unfortunately, anti-flopping rules do very little to deter flopping as the ref can only call it a foul if he is sure the player was exaggerating, which is very hard to be sure of. The point is that just like the ref has to be sure the player was exaggerating to caution him, he has to be sure a foul was the reason a player fell to call it. The result, most flopping results in no change in the outcome of the game...unless it's a certain someone from Man U who flops. Just kidding...kind of.
With respect to the average Joe watching soccer, I think the crying after the foul (whether a real foul or not) is much more damaging to the sport than fake diving. Over and over I hear from my soccer-hating friends (and family) that they just can't abide a sport that appears to reward wussy behavior. But I have no idea how to stop it. For diving, I think video review after games leading to suspension could go a long way. But the wussiness? Especially on a legitimate foul? Perhaps the idea of only awarding fouls based on what happened and not on the embellishment by the player would work, but probably not. This is a cultural thing. What would go a long way in THIS country would be for the people fouled to get in the face of the foulers, instead of rolling on the ground like wusses. This would be more American.
Malone, Stockton and Laimbeer are the three dirtiest, cheatingest, floppingest piles of crap to ever don NBA uniforms. This isn't new by any means. Stockton and Malone would constantly hook their arms under a defenders arms, then flop. They were the ones fouling yet moronic NBA refs gave 'em every flop call. I still have zero respect for those players who resorted to simply cheating to get by.
This will always be a problem, though, because a lot of those so-called "fake injuries" aren't fake. The too-familiar refrain of, "he looks like he got shot, and then gets up five seconds later" sometimes can be applied to real injuries (or, to be more accurate, real pain). When a guy takes another guy's studs in the ankle, it does hurt tremendously, and does temporarily make it damn near impossible to walk for a few minutes. But, once the pain subsides, there can be little to no lasting effect. Yes, I know that some guys milk this, and some do fake injuries, but not nearly all of them. This makes what diving exists appear to be much more prevalent than it actually is. And, even if diving was magically eliminated, and every such instance was legitimate, the soccer-ignorant would point to those instances as diving and faking. And, as has already been posted, most of them would just find something else to bash.
I love soccer. Love it. But Simmons was right then, and the point continues to be right. Soccer is the most divingest sport on the planet .......... way more so than NBA basketball. And this comes from a guy who acknowledges that flopping has certainly gotten worse over the years in the NBA. Again, I love soccer. But I, unlike many here, can totally understand why many of my friends are not interested in the game due to factors like that.
What bothers me the most is time wasting at the end of games... We are used to buzzer-beaters and timeouts and two-minute warnings, but soccer games end when the ref decides to blow his whistle. I have seen where three guys are suddenly on the ground near the end of a game for no real reason at all. The time added never equals what was lost. I remember a game where the guy was on the ground, someone picked him up and moved him off the field, and he moved back on so that play had to be stopped to attend to him. The new rule discourages players from kicking the ball out-of-bounds when a player is down, rather the referee is supposed to stop play. This helps a little in some situations and makes faking less effective. "Flopping" in the penalty area is not the same... There is skill involved. Initiating contact and making it look like a foul is a skill of the truly talented, in any contact sport. Michael Jordan comes to mind. He isn't known as a flopper, and people say the refs gave him calls, but ask an NBA defender who played Jordan and they will tell you he drew fouls on purpose and was great at it. He is still considered the best player ever. If you don't go down, the ref often won't make the call. That is just the way it is. There really need to be more referees to be called on, or instant replay or something. You could give each coach one challenge per game. People might resist it at first, but the first time their team is redeemed they won't complain any more. One stoppage per team would not affect the game any more than faked injuries. There is no reason that reffing should not be improved. The notion that it is an amateur, part-time job is ridiculous. The refs should be trained as much as the players are, and given every opportunity to make correct calls. The spirit of the game will always carry on in pick-up games and whatever. Adding a bit more accuracy in refereeing at the top levels cannot hurt. Being shafted by the refs doesn't have to be a part of the game. Everything else in the game has improved, but the reffing really hasn't.