Keith Hackett: ‘Cheating should not be tolerated’ after incident in Leeds v Soton clash
Former Premier League referee Keith Hackett has delivered his verdict on the controversial penalty incident in the Leeds United v Southampton game on Tuesday night.
Leeds won the game 3-0 but survived a penalty scare after referee Andre Marriner awarded Southampton a spot-kick when Nathan Tella had gone to ground.
Replays showed that he dived and the decision was overruled but Tella wasn’t given a yellow card.
Hackett was asked about the incident on Twitter by a Leeds fan who said, “Do refs not give bookings for blatant dives now?”
Hackett replied saying, “Too much of it ignored by referees. It really is time for them to clamp down. Cheating should not be tolerated.”
Cards must be produced
We couldn’t agree more with Hackett here and Graeme Souness took a similarly hard-line view on Sky Sports.
He said it was cheating too and that something like this incident happens every week.
VAR ensured that we got the correct decision but players like Tella won’t be put off doing the same thing again if they’re not punished at the time.
We applaud Marriner for having the nerve to overturn his decision, although it really shouldn’t have taken as long as it did – it was that blatant.
However, we want to see diving removed from the game and we think tougher measures should be introduced rather than letting players get away with it.
VAR should be a part of this and the advice coming from Stockley Park should have been that a yellow card should have been admonished.
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