It is official. The Premier League can now compete with the very best on equal terms. Congratulations to all concerned. We can cheat as well as anyone.
Chelsea’s Didier Drogba proved to be so effective at feigning injury, wasting time and generally making a complete spectacle of himself in the Champions League victory over Barcelona, people were queuing up to slap him on the back.
Naturally, Drogba reacted as you might expect. He hurled himself to the ground, writhed around on the turf in anguish, and generally behaved as if several vertebrae had been shattered by the contact.
But if he behaves as he did at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night, there is no ignoring the fact that he expends an enormous amount of energy simply making a mockery of the laws of the game.
The scoreline itself from the first leg provided plenty of satisfaction. The important statistic on the night said one goal had been scored and none conceded against the European champions. In those circumstances, the fact that Barca had 79 per cent of the ball and made 782 passes compared to Chelsea’s 194 was irrelevant.
But some were attributing the victory to another measure, one that was quite bizarre when you stopped to think about it.
People were finding a genuine sense of achievement in the fact that Drogba and Co — but mainly Drogba — had surpassed Barca in the scale of deceit too.
He was lauded for wasting huge chunks of time on the night. Some misguided commentators and various clowns decided what Drogba had done was ‘good cheating’.
It was Barcelona ‘finally getting what they deserved’ having previously marred many a sparkling display through the years with histrionics from the likes of Sergio Busquets and the despicable Daniel Alves.
This week Chelsea won that faux battle and, since everyone else is doing it, that’s OK then. It’s apparently acceptable. A phoney rationale is taking hold that advocates true professionalism is doing what needs to be done for the team — and the ends justify the means in top-flight sport.
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That is what football is becoming now. It is a sham. It is performance played out by a team of actors trying to con and trick officials at every turn.
We are becoming so used to diving, or ‘simulation’, we almost grow weary of condemning the miscreants. The rulebook is dissolving before our eyes and nobody’s doing much about it.
Gary Neville admitted as much recently. In the face of continual diving throughout the game, he said: ‘Gradually your thinking changes. You might say your morality weakens. Certainly the value system you grew up with is challenged.’
But how you win should matter. If you cannot acknowledge this fact you are signing up to the great hypocrisy of football, where we only see cheating by the other side, never by our own. If he’s ‘our hero’ and ‘your cheat’, the game becomes an endless cycle of whining about whether one side was more dishonourable than the other.
In the end, there is no decency; just an endless procession of petty, snide infringements.
Serial offender: Barcelona's Sergio Busquets became infamous for his reaction to a brush off by Thiago Motta in the Champions League semi-final in 2009
To be fair, we’re pretty much there already. Chelsea fans howled at Drogba ‘Get up man!’ like the rest of the country during the first 45 minutes, but once he scored in injury time, it didn’t matter. He was their cheat. And it was fine, because Chelsea were ahead.
Over the past two weekends, Manchester United’s Ashley Young has also been running into outstretched legs and hurling himself through the air. There has been some condemnation, but would fans be so outraged by Young’s antics they would be ready to sacrifice the title? Or would they shrug and say ‘Adam Johnson did it for City the other week’? I think I can guess.
There are solutions, of course. They remain the same as they have been for a decade or more; a review body to look at controversial dives and hand out bans. And should a player roll around on the floor, the referee only has to stop the clock and display the minutes remaining on the screen. That way, the player is squandering no game time, merely the public’s patience.
These measures are overdue. The concept of sportsmanship is on the floor and it’s not faking it either. We have to remember football is not a game — it is a sport. It should be played with a vestige of honour, otherwise what’s the point? And if Chelsea are cheated out of Europe in the Camp Nou on Tuesday night, how can they ever complain about it now?
Act of deceit: Didier Drogba's behaviour made a mockery of the laws of the game
He did score what may prove to be the vital goal against the Catalans. We should recognise that. But he was an embarrassment for much of the contest.
This prompted people to ask afterwards whether Drogba was a hero, or a cheat? Well let me clear that one up for you. He was a cheat.
Drogba undoubtedly is a formidable performer. He remains Chelsea’s most effective weapon when he chooses to be, as he demonstrated in the FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham last Sunday.
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