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And for your diving theatrics, here’s a two-game ban

By: Bob | September 20th, 2007

Why should you care that a Lithuanian player you couldn’t identify in a police lineup has received a two-game ban for deceiving the referee into awarding his team a penalty kick? Because it is a step in the right direction to reduce the amount of diving in the sport. The player in question is Hearts midfielder Saulius Mikoliunas who won’t be able to take part in his country’s next two Euro 2008 qualifying reindeer games because of his theatrics in the video above. First we saw Adriano punished in Serie A, now a player on the international level will do the time for his crime. Next thing you know this might become a regular thing in all leagues. Anyone have any objections about that?

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Category: World Football

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Peter

p.s. if bicyclists lose their races/championships, then why not soccer players? maybe there's not a direct comparison - individual vs. team, but still...

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/...
Peter

i have a problem with it - it's not enough. you need to take away the goal, at a minimum, and probably forfeit the game.

with this ruling, you can easily cheat, win, and then get suspended for a couple of games after your team has advanced - so what? it's called taking one for the team, so players will continue to do it. but if you take away the win, _then_ you've got a real deterrent.

witness the ne patriots - bellicheat kept cheating cause he knew the league would never take away any of his ill-gotten wins and championships.
matt

kermit the frog is awesome at the footie play by play.
Klemen

The brits should look in their own leauge first!

Didier "Can't run without falling down" Drogba

Wayne "Look like Shrek, Walk like Shrek, Fall down like Shrek" Rooney

and of course the ugliest of the lot - Cristiano "Hair gel" Ronaldo. Seriously, the guy uses more hair gel that a medium size country in a year.
Dex

It's a shame he felt the need to do that. He made the Scottish defender look like a statue just seconds before with a fantastic move on the wing. Beauty and the beast.
elmeromero

no objections at all, this should have happened a long time ago. In fact, make the suspensions longer.
Ian

It's a good start. Several Lithuanian players, including Mikoliunas, were falling all over the pitch when they came to Scotland this month. Anything that can be done to curb diving should be done, and I'm all in favor of this.

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