??? Plenty of people both watch and care about both sports, I like an occasional game of American football on the t.v. but much prefer rugby as it is more action less stopping and it's over after the 80 mins plus injury time....both sports are much more exciting and less infuriating than watching football(soccer) players diving about the floor after minimal contact, complaining of injury that would seem to require major surgery, then after getting their free kick etc they have miraculously recovered!
That is what infuriates me about soccer. I'd be watching an exciting match and then a guy falls on grass and needs a stretcher to take him off the field of play. Once he gets to the sidelines, he pops back up. I haven't seen the stretcher come out for a while, so maybe they got rid of it as it looked rediculous.
What turned me off completely was in the World Cup several years ago (I think it was that event) where a guy got hit in the foot, grabs his face and falls down like he got sucker punched. That is the one play that has been etched in my mind every time I think of soccer.
Players do try to feign injury or dive in other sports. In North American football, some players used this tactic to slow the play down. The CFL and NFL instituted a rule where if you need medical assistance, you have to miss 3 plays. That is significant enough that it discourages players from using this tactic.
In hockey, some players were embellishing falls in order to draw a penalty. The NHL in an effort to stop this, started calling penalties on the player who dives.
When I look at how soccer is officiated, I don't blame the refs who have to call the game. The ball can go half the field in a few seconds. If the ball gets kicked across the field away from the ref and two players make contact and one of them falls down, it is difficult for the ref to determine if the contact was incidental, a dive or a penalty. We as spectators have the benefit of the camera that can follow and zoom into the play. The play can be half way across the field and other players may be in the line of sight.
When it comes to officiating, I compare North American football to soccer. In North American football, there are 7 officials on the field. Each has a responsibility to part of the field. They all have overlapping responsibility to call most plays that take place in the part of the field for which they are responsible in addition certain specific responsiblities (eg., offsides for the head linesman and line judge).
In soccer, there are only 3 officials that monitor the play in the field. I'm not counting the official who monitors substitutions. Only the referee can really determine most fouls. The linesmen are only responsible for line calls and offsides. In effect, there is only one official who is responsible for calling most fouls that occur over the entire area of the field. I think that there needs to be many more officials with the authority to make general calls.
