Former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg has weighed in on the incident involving Tottenham’s Heung-min Son during the clash against Leicester on Sunday.
The South Korean was shown the yellow card for diving in the first half of the fixture after he tripped over defender Harry Maguire’s leg.
Clattenburg is in agreement with the game’s referee Michael Oliver for booking Son for diving on Sunday, however, he feels that James Maddison should have been booked for the same thing.
“Both Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City were guilty of diving to try to win penalties at Wembley. Michael Oliver correctly booked Son Heung-min for a dive in the first half after the Tottenham forward had thrown himself over Harry Maguire’s planted leg,” he said in his Mail column.
“James Maddison can count himself fortunate not to have received the same punishment in the second half after the Leicester midfielder went to ground under very little contact from Jan Vertonghen.
“The South Korean star however disagreed with Oliver’s decision following Spurs’ 3-1 win on Sunday. ‘I was very, very disappointed to get a yellow,’ Son said in his post-match interview. ‘It was a mistake but the referee’s decision is part of football. I thought it was a penalty.’ ”
OPINION
Diving is something that is widely used in matches nowadays, and quite often, match officials do not notice it happening and do not do anything about it. However, like Clattenburg pointed out, Oliver was right to book Son for diving, even if he did protest after that it was a mistake. It happens way too often in a bid to get a penalty or a free-kick, so Leicester were lucky that Spurs could caught out this time. It is a shame it is not picked up on more because there is no doubt many more players who do the same in a bid to get the edge over their opponents. Strikers in particular are renown for diving, and this time, it seems like Son was gutted that he got caught out. Players are sometimes rather bitter when they get booked for diving, just as Son has suggested here. Nevertheless, diving will still be a regular occurrence, no matter how many referees take action.