Rangers: Tam McManus calls for SPFL to ban Todd Cantwell after ‘toe-curling’ incident v Aberdeen
Tam McManus has called for Scottish Premiership chiefs to ban Rangers star Todd Cantwell, as well as Kenneth Vargas and Ester Sokler, after what he describes as “toe-curling” dives.
The former Hibernian man referred to an incident in 2017 when Alex Schalk of Ross County was given a retrospective two-game ban for diving as he insisted the players must be punished.
Cantwell has received plenty of stick for the way he has been seen to throw himself to the floor in an attempt to buy fouls from the referee, and McManus has become the latest to hit out.
“It’s time to bring Schalk’s Law into Scottish football and rid our game of the diving curse that’s only getting worse,” wrote McManus in his column for the Daily Record [29 November].
“Three toe-curling instances – Todd Cantwell, Kenneth Vargas and Ester Sokler – at the weekend produced just one booking and no suspensions. If it was down to me they’d all be getting cited and banned for two games like Alex Schalk of Ross County back in 2017.
“Listen I understand as a forward that if you’re caught at all in the box then you go down. You’re taught that as a kid. But you HAVE to be caught. The three dives at the weekend were embarrassing.”
We must crack down on diving
McManus is right to an extent – the game as a whole must crack down on out-and-out diving. However, when it comes to the interpretation of what is and isn’t a dive, the confusion and disagreements could lead to players being harshly banned.
For example, Chris Sutton claimed Connor Goldson dived to win a penalty against Aberdeen, despite a clear pull on his shirt as he attempted to make a move. There was contact, he was invited to go down, and it was not a dive. Now imagine he got a retrospective ban for the incident.
Other situations, as seen with Cantwell at Rangers and others in the league, where a player goes down under no contact at all in an attempt to deceive the referee, should be punished accordingly to stamp that out of the game.
It is the way modern football works that if a player doesn’t go down, they won’t get a decision regardless of whether there is a foul. For that, you can excuse players going over easily under contact. But with no contact, it’s a dive, and it should not be part of our game.
In other Rangers news, a pundit has mooted three gems to step up to the first team.