
Enrique QuevedoSan Francisco, CA, United States
Jul 19, 2018
The World Cup came and went with lots of excitement, great games and unexpected results. There were also dives happening and this is the first time we all get to know exactly how much it happened and the impact those dives had on the matches.
During the World Cup’s month we worked very hard analysing 1,777 plays from the 64 games and tracked 962 dives from the 32 teams, 82% of those dives were successfully identified by the referees or by VAR but the rest went unrecognised causing unfair impact on the matches. Besides the obvious impact of stopping the natural flow of the games we quantified 26 unfairly given yellow cards, 4 goals scored because of dives which changed standing match winner 3 times. We also created the World Cup Diving Report ( http://bit.ly/SD-Russia2018 ) to keep track of all this data and to share it with the everybody as the World Cup was progressing.
On the positive side, we saw 41% less impact in the World Cup than in a sample of Champions League games we analysed earlier in the year ( http://bit.ly/SD-UCL ). While diving continues happening we are happy to see technology is helping reduce material impact and creating a more fair game.
We also discovered some hidden gems in the tournament:
1) Mo Salah was the most honest of all renowned players in the World Cup.
2) Denis Cheryshev, our fair play golden boot, was the most honest top scorer.
3) Belgium, the most honest team reaching the finals and the #1 scoring team (16 goals).
See these and more interesting details in our final report: http://bit.ly/SD-WorldCup
All that said, we continue to think a more profound change is needed and that it should come from players embracing high standards of honour and integrity to become true positive role models for youngsters. That’s why we will continue promoting this petition going forward. We will keep it relevant by changing the title and directing it to all professional football players in the world regardless of country, league or tournament.
Please help us promote the cause through your networks!
#StopDiving
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