England’s press have fallen over themselves to congratulate captain Wayne Rooney for his new historic scoring feat that he achieved for his country last night. In fairness I also wrote about it in the previous blog post.

But the media don’t seem overly fussed in discussing what lead up to the penalty that Rooney would convert and seal his name in Three Lions folklore.

The fact is this; Raheem Sterling dived for that penalty!

Now the Manchester City forward did marvellously well inside the Swiss box and showed great close control. Yes the Switzerland defender did make a lazy attempt at the ball.

But there wasn’t enough contact to bring Sterling down in the area, the Englishman wasn’t going at full speed and if anything Sterling himself actually initiated any contact there was, which was minimal at best.

It’s not the first time Raheem has went down too easily under a slight touch or challenge.

After a match against Sunderland, Sterling’s then boss Liverpool’s Brendan Rogers had to come out a defend his player after a similar fall in the box:

‘I didn’t think it was a dive, but I don’t think it was a penalty. I just think it was one of those coming togethers in the box that sometimes happens and the referee made the right decision.’

I don’t actually blame Sterling for chancing his arm and going down, it worked and his team got a penalty from it. It is also rife in the game and has been for a long time now. 

My issue is the reporting of it, or lack thereof.

During the live commentary, Glenn Hoddle seemed to go with ‘And there is the erm contact’. It wasn’t said with any conviction and ITV then decided not to replay the incident again during the match.

After the game, pundits Ian Wright and Lee Dixon suggested that if you leave a leg in then you’ll concede a foul in international football. The pair didn’t mention the lack of contact and Wright was just desperate to look on at the Rooney penalty for the fiftieth time!

If #Sterling was any other Nationality @LeeDixon2 and @IanWright0 would be tearing him apart for that dive right now. Come on lads. #England

— Arsene’s Eyes (@Arsenes_Eyes) September 8, 2015

If you type in ‘Sterling dive’ into Google news, you won’t see any major media outlet posting about the dodgy decision either. You do get news about the Euro/pound exchange rate if that’s your bag.

Now that is all very well and good but for the past decade and a half we’ve all seen thousands of news reports telling us that the English Premier League has been ruined by the great influx of foreign players who will cheat with their constant diving and play acting.

Honestly it’s a great go-to piece for the press.

Just imagine what will happen if Manchester United or Liverpool win a similar type of penalty this weekend and it wins them the game in injury time.

It would cause a furore!

If Memphis Depay or Roberto Firmino were to go down as easily as Sterling did, then it would be a headline in every newspapers back page.

Sky Sports News would be debating about it for hours during their Monday morning breakfast slot, with former referee Dermot Gallagher getting wheeled out for his expert opinion.

Journos up and down the land would be writing the same old rubbish about getting more advanced TV replays to help the officials.

And once again it would be blamed on the continental culture that has creeped into the English game. They wouldn’t see the irony or care about the Sterling incident, as that wasn’t even deemed relevant enough to make yesterday’s fish and chip paper!

I just don’t get why the press need to gloss over certain things when it suits them. Surely they are there to give us insight and report on things in an unbiased fashion?

Raheem Sterling took a ‘dive’ or perhaps more accurately he wasn’t fouled. Just say that and then move on. Don’t try and hide away from it, as we all saw exactly what happened.

Be transparent and don’t have one rule for one and another for the foreigners…. Unless you are the Daily Mail as that seems to be their constant agenda!

Posted on September 9th, 2015 by scott
Filed under: Article