That's it, yet anopther gray area in the law. Some ref's will penalise you whilst others won't

(taken from the Independent)

Football has had plenty of famous cheats, including Diego Maradona and his "Hand of God" goal against England in the 1986 World Cup and Chile's Roberto Rojas, who cut himself with a razor blade and successfully got a World Cup qualifier against Brazil abandoned in 1989.

In recent times diving and shirt-pulling have become so commonplace that they have almost become an accepted part of the game, as Frank Clark, vice-chairman of the League Managers' Association, admitted.

"Diving is much more widespread than it used to be," he said. "That's developed as the laws of the game have changed. The game has been cleaned up to some extent, but that has meant that it's now more difficult for players to tackle. Human nature being what it is people find other ways of stopping opponents. I think shirt-pulling has come in partly as a compensation for not being able to tackle."


They seem to think it's cheating. I've certainly felt cheated in the past, one example was when i player of ours had got into the box & was having his shirt pulled (quiet clearly from me point of view) but because he refused to go down the ref never gave a pen, i'm sure he would of if the player would have gone to ground.