To dive, or not to dive and the cheating that VAR should catch – Sue Smith

If I had not jumped out of the way I would like to think I would have hit the target.

My manager said to me after the game, ‘Why didn’t you go down? We could have got a penalty and gone 1-0 up.’

I went home and spoke to my dad and my brother who told me if you can stay on your feet and score, you do that. That was how I was brought up.

I would like to think if I was playing now in a game with a video assistant referee watching I would have the same mindset but I probably wouldn’t if it meant my team winning the game.

It is reaching the point where whenever a player feels contact they will go down because they know they will be given a penalty, whether it would bring you down or not. As soon as it is slowed down on the replays, it looks worse.

Leeds United winger Ian Poveda stayed on his feet after getting clipped in the Chelsea penalty area last week.

I was pleased he did and got a shot away but as a former Leeds player I was thinking, ‘Why didn’t he go down?’ because it would probably have been given as a penalty when you look at all the others that have been given lately.

When we spoke to former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher about the incident on Sky he pretty much said if Poveda had gone, it would have been reviewed by the VAR.

Referees and VARs need to enforce the rules properly so players like Poveda are not put in that sort of position.

I covered Brighton and Hove Albion’s game against Liverpool for Sky Sports when a brush of Danny Welbeck’s boot was enough to win his side a penalty. As soon as you saw the referee go to the review area, you knew it was going to be given once it was slowed down and you could see the contact. You just do not want penalties to be given for that.

My view is if you are being impeded, if it puts you off and stops you scoring, it should be a penalty. Would Welbeck have scored in that situation? Probably not.

As I wrote about handball recently, it is going to change the way people defend and in this case make them scared to make a tackle in the area.

If the VAR looks at a decision more than five times they should just go with the referee, rather than review it to the Nth degree. That is why I am pleased referees are going over to the monitor more but I also think decisions should be watched back in normal time because they always looks worse in slow motion.

It feels like the VARs just view it as a technical exercise to detect contact, rather than looking at it in the context of the game to see if the player has been impeded.

I feel for them because I went to Stockley Park just before VAR came into the Premier League and they threw clips at us and gave us about 20 seconds to make a decision. I felt really under pressure and I only had a colleague watching, for them it will be a million times worse with fans watching in the stadium and on television. But it is still frustrating as a fan and a pundit.

VAR should be ideal to stop players from diving when there is no contact but you hardly ever see a player punished for it from Stockley Park.

Watching Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Conor Coady go down in the penalty area at Anfield that same night I immediately thought it was a penalty but just looking at how sheepish he was and the reaction of Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson, you could tell it was a dive.

Being labelled a diver is terrible. When I played for Doncaster Rovers Belles at Durham I was clipped as I went through and I went down. The referee was going to give a penalty but the linesman must have said something because she booked me for diving.

I was absolutely fuming. On the coach home I asked our analyst who filmed the game to find it because I wanted to send it to the referee I was that mad.

I calmed down in the end and did not, but I showed it to my team-mates, who had been pulling my leg about diving. It was a reputation I did not want to have. You not want young kids watching players go down for nothing and doing it on the park. We do not want to see cheating.

But players will play the rules and the officials, especially if there is no comeback from VAR.

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