Diving is one of those subjects that can turn a normal match chat into a full-on row in about ten seconds. You see a player hit the deck, you feel your blood pressure go, and then you’re arguing about “integrity” like you’re on a panel show. Truth is, it’s part of the game now. Not a nice part, not a romantic part, but it’s there, week in, week out.

And if we’re being honest, it’s not just a Liverpool thing, or a “that lad always does it” thing. Everyone does it. Players go down to win a decision, to slow the game, to buy a breather, to pull a defender into a booking. It’s an edge. It’s been coached into them for years as part of the dark arts, the same way defenders are taught to use their arms cleverly and midfielders are taught to feel contact and protect the ball.

Why “just punish it after the match” sounds easy

The obvious fix people shout for is retrospective punishment. Review the footage, book them later, ban them, stamp it out. Simple, right?

Except it isn’t, mainly because the current officiating set-up struggles with straightforward calls in real time. If the PGMOL can’t consistently land on the same interpretation of handball, contact in the box, or “clear and obvious”, what chance have they got of judging intent from a slowed-down clip on a Monday morning?

You’d end up with another moving line in the sand. One week it’s a “clever win” and the next it’s a two-game ban, and nobody knows where they stand. That’s before you even get into the mess of players initiating contact, minimal contact, or the theatrical reaction that follows. Football is played at speed. Retrospective certainty is usually an illusion.

It’s not just “our lads” and that matters

This is where Liverpool fans, myself included, need to be careful. It’s easy to defend it when it’s one of ours and condemn it when it’s not. You mentioned Mac Allister and that’s fair, but the bigger point is it’s everywhere across the league. If you only want the rulebook applied when it suits your badge, you’re not really arguing for fairness, you’re arguing for your team to get the breaks.

Grealish, the best at making it look real

There are different types of diver too. Some are blatant. Others are artists, and Jack Grealish is the standout for me in that category. He’s brilliant at turning a brush into a foul, at selling the moment, at making the referee feel like they’ve seen something. And because it looks believable at full pace, it often slips through without the same backlash.

Genius? Maybe. Infuriating? Definitely. But it also tells you the truth about where the modern game is: if it’s rewarded, it will be used. The question isn’t whether it exists. It’s whether anyone is equipped to reduce it without making officiating even more chaotic than it already is.

Written by Sean Dundee: 3 January 2026

Tags: efl