The FA might start handing out bans for diving because diving is bad

There exists a breed of people not yet aware of the light. They haven’t surrendered their souls and lives to the one true sport. And when they’re asked to come up with one good reason for their soccerphobia, these non-believers almost always say that the diving and flopping puts them off.

And… well… they have a point.

Soccer isn’t perfect. It’s a hotbed for corruption and graft and plenty of the men — and they are almost exclusively men — who run the game as administrators, owners and executives don’t always have the best interest of the game in mind.

But the biggest blight on the game is the diving, flopping, simulation or whatever else you want to call it. It’s silly, and it’s ugly. And while it’s sort of understandable, given that it’s rarely punished and that the stakes are increasingly high, it was also high time that something was done about it.

Major League Soccer took steps to remedy this back in 2011, handing out fines and/or suspensions. It doesn’t do so super frequently — it tends not to happen more than once a season, if that — but in a league that already was light on simulation, it seems to have rooted it out almost completely.

According to the Times, the English Football Association is looking into doing the same sort of thing. The initiative was inspired by the Scottish FA, where players can be banned retroactively for dives referees might have missed in the games. Earlier this season, Jamie Walker of Hearts was suspended for two games for a flop that earned a penalty against Celtic in the Scottish Premier League.

A potential new rule would give the FA leeway to punish players after the fact even if the referees missed the infraction during the game, just as they can with malicious tackles.

If it makes soccer cleaner and more watchable, and there’s a precedent here stateside to suggest that it should, we’re all for it.

In the meantime, let’s not enjoy a compilation of some of the worst ever flops.