Chelsea star should get “one game ban” for disrespectful action says former Premier League ref | OneFootball

Former PGMOL chief and ex-Premier League referee Keith Hackett always has some nice strong takes in his exclusives for Football Insider, and this week is no exception.

He spotted something unfortunate in the Chelsea game last night and had some pretty strong takes on it. Pedro Neto was the key player for the Blues in the win over Southampton, scoring once and assisting once and leading the line effectively.

However he blotted his copy book with some pretty pathetic play acting when he went down in the 30th minute. Southampton defender Armel Bella-Kotchap caught him lightly with his hand, and the winger went down like he had been shot to try and get the opposition player sent off.

This was more than just simulating contact, this was simulating violent conduct.

Hackett claimed that this showed a lack of respect between opposing players, and should be punished with retrospective action:

“Sadly, the respect that players should have for their opponents is in decline. Incidents like this should be accurately judged by the match official, who should issue a yellow card to each player,” the ex-FIFA referee said.

“I have said for some time that the FA should bring in a procedure where these types of incidents are viewed, and where appropriate, have retrospective punishment applied, with at least a one game ban.”

Retrospective action for faking injury can only help the product

Pedro Neto’s controversial celebration.

We really like Neto, but we agree this was some scandalous gamesmanship. Football is worse because of this sort of play acting, and if retrospective action would help clear it up, we’re all in favour. We’ve all wasted cumulative hours of our lives watching players roll around pretending to be hurt – it’s time to take action to stop it.

If they don’t want to respect each other, they will have to be forced to