Tom Daley impressions

Biggest scourge of soccer isn't diving, but players crowding the referee when he makes a contentious decision. I can't see any reason why FIFA don't bring in the Union rule where only the captain is allowed to speak with the referee. It's ugly, unnecessary and encourages the same sort of behaviour to become acceptable at club level.

 

I thought it was a rule in almost all sports that only the captain could talk tot he referee, that's why they're the captain. Should definitely be implemented imo.

 

100% this.

It's always so uncomfortable to watch players surrounding referees and putting hands on their shoulders and the like. Coming from an AFL background, where the league has maybe even gone too far in stamping out this sort of behaviour (to the point of players not being allowed to talk back to the umpires at all), seeing this sort of stuff in soccer is cringeworthy and is absolutely a blight on the game.

If I had to choose between the AFL's model of stamping out pretty much all dissent and the association football model, I'd go the former every day of the week.

Ideally you'd want the union situation where it looks like there is active respect for the referee. It's no surprise that in soccer there are far too many instances of referees being pelted with things and receiving death threats (i.e. Anders Frisk) when you have players and managers treating them with such contempt. If players ever have to be seen as rolemodels, it should be in the situation of how they treat the officials because that, more than any drinking or sex romps or whatever, is what kids see and think is OK.