FA to act after Man City vs Leeds incident enrages Daniel Farke: ‘It’s cheating’
Man City were “cheating” in their win over Leeds United and rules need to change according to the former boss of the PGMOL.
Leeds fought back from two goals down to level against Man City, only to lose 3-2 thanks to a stoppage-time Phil Foden winner on Saturday.
Daniel Farke is already facing the sack at Leeds and wasn’t happy after the final whistle over an incident early in the second half as the Whites suddenly turned momentum on its head at the Etihad.
Gianluigi Donnarumma went down apparently injured in the City goal, allowing the rest of the City side to take instructions from Pep Guardiola on the sidelines, with the keeper subsequently fine to continue.
Keith Hackett slams fake injuries after Etihad controversy
Farke indicated it wasn’t “fair play” in the press following the game but stopped short of directly criticising his opposite number if it was technically within the rules.
The German said he’d asked the fourth official what they planned to do about the “fake injury”, only to be told that the referee and his colleague’s “hands are tied”.
Ex-FIFA referee and the former head of the PGMOL Keith Hackett had no such hesitancy in branding the practice “cheating” and wants to see laws changed to get rid of it.
Speaking exclusively to MOT Leeds News he said: “The action of a player going down feigning injury to enable his manager to have a technical time out is becoming a regular approach by a good number of teams at the professional level.
“It’s a difficult one for the referee who often is forced to take the safe option of stopping the game for the alleged injured player to receive treatment.
“Whilst treatment is rather slow we see time-consuming time wasting before the game restarts.
It breaks up the continuity of the game and allows the team to regroup.
“I wonder if after these stoppages the referee is adding on sufficient time. This is a difficult one with referees frankly being between a rock and a hard place.
“Football, either through agreement or consideration of a law change must put its house in order. The facts are that it’s cheating to get the game stopped. We see suddenly players sprinting to the touchline for a technical de-brief. We also see referees adding on three minutes of added time when it should be more.
“Action by the authorities is what is required.”
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Man City ‘cheating’ didn’t work
The recent trend for goalkeepers to be used to stop play seems particularly egregious when everyone involved appears to be aware that it isn’t genuine, and teams often don’t even try to make it believable.
Players and managers will be outraged if crying wolf eventually leads to a hurt keeper being ignored while play continues and a goal is scored, so obviously it needs to be dealt with somehow.
Safety is supposed to be a priority so referees can hardly win, but simulation has long been punishable by a booking so that seems an obvious solution.
At the Etihad it didn’t even work for Guardiola to regroup after Dominic Calvert-Lewin had scored for Leeds and put City on the back foot, since he then went on to win a penalty which Lukas Nmecha scored on the rebound to make it 2-2.
The Donnarumma incident will have been extremely frustrating but Willy Gnonto did escape a Leeds red card in the first half so there was some fortune for the visitors.
It would have been an especially infuriating day for Farke when his starting XI changes let him down completely, his half-time moves almost rescued things, to still lose a fourth straight with his job on the line.
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