Wigan gaffer Paul Jewell has spoken out on the subject of diving admitting he would legalise it.
What? Can that be right? Anyway, with everyone talking about ‘simulation’ at the moment after ManYoo‘s Cristiano Ronaldo went tumbling through the air like a gunned duck and subsequently incurred the bile virtually everyone under the sun, Jewell decided to speak up… especially as Latics’ striker Emile Heskey also came under scrutiny against Liverpool at the weekend for going down easily.
Jewell is no fan of players tumbling to the ground at every given opportunity, but believes the best way to eradicate it from the game would be to legalise diving.
"I may be the only person in the world who believes this, but why don’t we allow it?" he said in an interview on Sky Sports News.
Jewell continued: "The pubs open 24 hours a day and everybody was worried people would be
drunk on the streets, well there are less drunks on the streets now
than when they used to close at three o’clock. So we just allow it and
stop everyone talking about it. One week you get away with it, the next
week you wouldn’t. So stop it in my opinion. People say it is cheating,
but you ask any supporter and if one of our players goes down in the
box and we need a penalty to stay in the league or win a cup. Do you
know what they are going to say?"
Jewell added further "It will be the same as Man United
fans, Liverpool fans, Chelsea fans and chairman: Go down. At the end of the day I might get lambasted for that, but that’s the
way it is. We are all trying to get an edge. When the ball goes out of play and
it is obviously a corner, defenders always say it is their ball. It is
a just creating an edge. I hate diving, but if it is in the game and if you allow it it will go
away on its own and people will stop talking about it." [Mof Gimmers]