Sportsmanship Banned This Season

Interesting read on the BBC Sports pages suggesting that The Premier League are going to ask players not to kick the ball out of play if they see that a player from the opposing team is injured.

The 'thinking' (and I use that word with caution) behind this is that it has become a trend to kick the ball out for non-existent injuries, thereby giving one side an unfair advantage.

For example, a couple of Arsenal players faked injury to stop a Spurs attack in a Premiership match last season but Jol - rightly, in my view - told them to keep playing and not kick the ball out. The result: Wenger and Jol having a toe-to-toe row.

The Premier League want this to stop, saying that "If there is a serious injury then the referee can, of course, take immediate action in the interests of player safety, but if it's a run-of-the-mill knock then play should go on...".

My view is that this is typical of the poorly thought through, reactionary rubbish that the Premier League is famous for.

So, there's been a couple of controversial incidents related to this and yeah, sometimes teams use it to their advantage. But so what?

The reason that players DO kick the ball out if they see a player down injured is that they are all in it together at one level. They know that almost any injury can be career threatening and hope that if they kick the ball out for someone else; then someone else might do it for them.

If you strip away the professional bonds between footballers on different sides - as this Premier League brainstorm is attempting to do - then you will make the game worse, not better. It's that simple.