There are many names for what we saw last weekend in the Premier League. The diplomats among us might call it "simulation," while the traditionalists would opt for "diving." There was a movement in North America to call it "flopping," which is beautifully descriptive, but ultimately it's "cheating."
Perhaps it's not the worst sort of cheating available. It's not match-fixing or doping. You might think that deliberately smashing an opponent's leg in half is more problematic than diving, and you'd make a very good point. But none of this negates from the fact that diving is not being clever, crafty or "gamesmanship." It's cheating. And it would be welcome if we could find a way to stop it.
There have been some strange defences of diving in recent weeks. The notion players are not diving, that they're evading injury, is an interesting one. That was used to defend Marcus Rashford last Sunday when he fell to the ground even though Swansea goaleeper Lukasz Fabianski pulled out of his challenge. It's nonsense. Even if Fabianski had swiped his legs away, Rashford would almost certainly have landed safely on soft grass. He is a big boy -- the "evading injury" excuse is acceptable when two sets of studs are raised and accelerating in at knee-level. But not for this.
And just try to defend Lucas' dive for Liverpool against Watford on Monday. Or Manchester City's Leroy Sane against Middlesbrough. The only thing they're evading is dignity.
There is a school of thought that players are "entitled to go down," if they feel contact. This is ridiculous. No-one is "entitled" to go down. You're either brought down or you're not. A light touch on a man running at pace could, arguably, unbalance him and cause him to fall over. That's fine. A gentle tug on the back of his shirt could not. If you gently tugged my shirt at the bar and I slammed myself face-first into the floor, spilling two pints of lager over everyone's shoes, would you say that I was entitled to go down? You would not, no. And you might consider leaving and drinking somewhere else.
The incentive for the cheats is to win a foul, or a penalty. The deterrent, that the referee might feel brave enough to book them, is not strong enough. Referees are very rarely that sure of themselves. And that's where we can help them out.
There are two solutions that immediately present themselves. Firstly, to use video assistant referees (VAR) to immediately review incidents. The main counter-argument to VAR seems to be that if we eradicate all the mistakes, we won't have anything to discuss in the pub afterwards. This is Olympic standard stupidity. You know what? We should be happy to pay this "price". We are more than capable of finding something else to discuss in the pub. The football, perhaps?
VAR would allow the officials to use video replays to check contentious calls. It is absurd the Premier League already offers this service to journalists, but not to referees. In every press box in every stadium in the top division, there are banks of TV screens so that reporters can double-check what happened for themselves before they make a mistake in their copy. Within 10 seconds, every journalist has a fair idea whether it was a penalty or not. How ridiculous to deny that protection to the men who make the decisions. Yes, it's true that it isn't always possible to conclusively prove a dive, but that's true of any decision. There will always be moments where the judgements reached will prove unsatisfactory to some. But just because you can't achieve perfection, that's no reason not to try to improve.
The second solution is a longer term deterrent and that means retrospective bans. We already have a dubious goals panel, where three ex-players determine the rightful owners of disputed goals. Would it really be that much more work to have a dubious dives panel? We can use the same three ex-players -- there's bound to be enough in the Premier League's budget to pay them for another hour. For every dive, they can hand out a one-match ban. This would be a serious deterrent to the serial offender, though there have been periods in Ashley Young's career where he might have ruled himself out until the end of the season in the space of one game.
The ideal solution to the problem of mistakes by officials is to stop whining about them; to accept that referees are human and that they make human errors. To recognise and respect these men and women are contracted to spot the un-spottable through crowds of arms and legs at lightning pace while running approximately 10km over 90 minutes in an arena full of people baying for their blood.
But we don't seem to be doing too well on that front, so it's time to move to Plan B. Give the referees the help that they need and punish the cheats until they stop.
Iain Macintosh covers the Premier League and Champions League for ESPN FC. Follow him on Twitter @IainMacintosh.
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