https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PDzceBFtQY
Think of a word that springs straight to your mind when you hear the name Lance Armstrong.
I’d wager good money that it was something like ‘cheat’. Probably worse.
I’d wager better money that no-one’s first thought was anything remotely positive or even ambivalent.
Thankfully, a man like Armstrong eventually got his comeuppance. Thankfully, others did, too.
Ben Johnson. Tyson Gay. Dwayne Chambers, to an extent.
Even Diego Maradona for using ephedrine in ’94.
They strung the same man up in England eight years before for raising his hand into the air and touching the ball with it. Luis Suarez saw red and missed a World Cup semi final for a similar offence in 2010.
And, yet, on the same planet, in the same society, Jordi Alba can do what he did tonight a hundred times over without anyone even batting an eyelid at it.
The Barcelona full back could scamper into an opposing box, get hit with an inch-perfect tackle and throw himself over all he likes and no-one seems to care. He could chase after and berate the referee for as long as he likes knowing full well that he was beaten fairly and no-one is willing to take action. No-one is ready to make a fit and proper ruling on it.
No-one is willing to stand up and say, ‘no more.’
What Jordi Alba did against Man City when he took a dive in a relative non-event in the first half was largely immaterial. It affected nothing in the outcome of the game. Nothing. And yet it effects everything.
In a world where we tell our children to pick themselves up, where we teach them not to cry for what they want, people like Jordi Alba undermine that.
In a world where sport is supposed to be men against men, a battle of will, Jordi Alba undermines that.
In a world where athletes like Ben Johnson and Lance Armstrong have been treated with the complete contempt that they deserve, excommunicated for cheating, Jordi Alba undermines that.
Diving is cheating. Cheating is unacceptable.
Is the lesson not supposed to be to not commit the crime if you can’t do the time? Not one, two, three and four strikes and we’ll mayve talk about you going out.
A red card, a suspension, utter disdain is the only answer to a dive. It’s the only answer to a cheat.
If you don’t like it, don’t do it. It’s a conscious, pathetic choice. Not a mistake.
And the more we toe the line of looking at its impact, looking at the area of the field, all the bullshit grey areas in between, the more we accept it.
You’re not allowed to use drugs. You’re not allowed to handball. You’re not allowed to dive.
It’s about time it was stopped.
