West Ham’s Manuel Lanzini has received a ban for diving against Stoke City. Whilst the ban is appropriate, the FA are proving inconsistent.
When Manuel Lanzini went down in the box against Stoke, the West Ham fan in me shouted for a penalty. When it was given I was excited and when Noble scored I was delighted. But looking back at the replay of Lanzini’s challenge I was disappointed. For me, the Argentine had dived.
There has been disagreement between fans and that is understandable. Some felt he simply played for the contact and Pieters was stupid enough to give it. But I feel he was going over before the challenge, and that’s not what the sport is about. The FA panel felt he had conned the referee, and slapped him with a two match ban. He’s not the first player, but there should have been more.
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If the FA is serious about stamping out diving, then the current rules are ridiculous. The FA has said this previously about the rule:
"“Although attempts to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled is a cautionable offence for unsporting behaviour, the fact that the act of simulation has succeeded in deceiving a match official and, therefore, led to a penalty and/or dismissal, justifies a more severe penalty which would act as a deterrent.”"
So for someone to be judged guilty by this panel, they first have to have deceived the referee. If Lanzini dived, then yes he did cause deception because he won the penalty. But what about Zaha’s dive from the week before?
Is everyone just gonna ignore this dive from Zaha on Saturday? MOTD saying "certain penalty", okay then pic.twitter.com/bgxmONm28H
— Jack (@UtdTait) October 5, 2015
For me there is no difference between this and Lanzini’s. Zaha gets contact but he’s down before the first touch is made. It’s simple. If Lanzini deserves a ban, then so does Zaha. The consistency has to be there. And I also think that if the FA wants to really stamp out on diving, they either have to give yellow cards for every piece of simulation or retrospective bans for the worst dives. Like this from Jesus is just horrible
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No booking. No retrospective ban. That is far worse than anything Lanzini did and West Ham have a right to be aggrieved about the inconsistency the FA’s current approach is showing. There needs to be more action from the men at the top on this issue if they really want it gone.