New FA rules to retroactively punish simulation beginning next season

Tired of seeing players flop like fish and get away with it? So’s the Football Association. If there’s an issue that most football fans can rally behind, it’s that it’s far, far too easy to get away with diving in the modern game. It’s reached the point where strikers, for example, are encouraged by the rules of the game (or, more accurately, lack of punishment) to simulate in order to pick up a penalty or to get an opponent booked.

Now, thanks to the Football Association new rules will be in place that will retroactively ban simulation and match official deception that results in a penalty or an opposition player being sent off. The new rules will allow for retrospective review of an incident of “successful deception of a match offic...