Eduardo Gets 2-Game ban. Will UEFA keep it up?

So Eduardo’s dive in Arsenal’s game against Celtic (above), has been formally punished by UEFA with a two match Champions League ban. Arsene Wenger will undoubtedly unsuccessfully appeal, and will curse UEFA some more. In fact Arsenal have written a 19 page riposte to the banning, claiming you can’t tell Eduardo’s intentions, and that he did get touched anyway.

But ultimately, he’ll miss Arsenal’s games against Standard and Olympiacos, which kick off the Champions league in group H.

The point is really, that a 2 game ban for a dive could be quite a good idea. I know, that this is had been a prickly, controversial issue, but a couple of games seems about right. But the big question is of consistancy, can UEFA possibly be consistant about this? And what are the guidelines for when this happens again?

So the two game ban, while nice in principle has some problems. Firstly, if anyone else dives in the Champions League now, are they going to get a two game ban? They will have to, because otherwise Arsene will be quite right to have called it a witch hunt otherwise. So are UEFA going to study every foul that takes place in Champions League games?

Also, is this ban only for players who get away with it in-game? Because if a player dives in a match, and just picks up a booking, are they going to go only punished by a yellow card? Does this only apply to penalty dives, not dives just outside the box, or on the half way line?

Its all very good trying to set a precedent, but what UEFA really needs to do, and needs to have done for ages, is set up a proper, formal guideline. Preferably, FIFA could do it, and then we wouldn’t have this strange situation where it only applies to the Champions League.

We’ve all known for ages that diving is all a bit bad and we’d be better off without it, so why has it taken one massively-overblown incident for UEFA to act? It all seems a bit strange to me, and I can see why Wenger is a bit annoyed.

I think if you established a two game ban across the board, it would make sense, and diving would surely become alot less prevalent. But we need to know the rules, and not get the impression that UEFA is just trying to point score some popularity, by making it up as they go on.

Category: News