Author: Mark Szczuka
Photos: Stephen Gormley (Red Eye)

One of the strongest memories to come from the 2018 World Cup will undoubtedly be the social media videos across the world making fun of Brazilian striker Neymar Junior rolling around in apparent life threatening pain following the slightest of contact by another person.

As an example of this humour, the half time entertainment at a friendly match in Mexico between local side Tijuana and Costa Rican Herediano shortly after the Brazil v Mexico 2nd round match included a competition to see which of 10 fans could roll their way from the centre circle to the penalty area the quickest in mockery of Neymar!

But is it really fair to focus on a single player given that diving and over-reacting to win penalties and get opposition players booked has been poisoning the game of football for decades?

Indeed in the match against Mexico that generated the most significant (over)reaction from Neymar at this years’ World Cup, it was obvious from video replays that Mexican player Miguel Layun had deliberately stood on Neymar’s ankle with his studs in the 70th minute of the match. Despite Neymar’s best efforts to roll around the ground for several minutes to highlight to the match officials that something untowards had happened, the referee didn’t even bother to book Layun let alone send him off, for what was a clear red-card offence.

It’s also not the first time that World Cups have been marred by players over-reacting to soft challenges. Another Brazilian player Rivaldo infamously fell over clutching his face in apparent severe pain after a Turkish player had kicked the ball against his body at the 2002 Semi Final in Japan.

Equally memorable was David Beckham’s red card for his soft kick on Argentina’s Diego Simeone in the 2nd round match of the 1998 World Cup – interestingly that time more negative press was given to Beckham for the foul than Simeone for his clear over-reaction.

Also when you look back, where is the uproar against Michael Owen for clearly diving to win a penalty 4 years later in Japan to secure England’s revenge with a narrow 1-0 victory over Argentina?

So to answer the question posed at the start here – Is Neymar being treated unfairly by the World? Well, perhaps yes when you compare him against numerous other / worse examples in every league in every country across the world.

However is it a good thing to highlight this type of unsporting conduct by ridiculing one of the most famous and high profile players in current World football (Neymar currently holds the record for highest transfer fee in football)? Well, definitely yes, especially when you consider that Neymar is no longer the very young and inexperienced 22-year old bright star when he appeared on the scene at the World Cup four years ago in Brazil.

But as well as mocking the player for this unwelcome acting, where are the calls from football fans across the world to football authorities to start doing something to rid the game of this type of unwelcomed behaviour? 

Now more than ever before with additional real-time TV scrutiny through VAR there is even less excuse for match officials to not punish players for this type of behaviour. If referees started booking players for over-reacting to actual fouls as well as for diving without contact then surely these types of instances will start to reduce. Until then no doubt Neymar and plenty of other players will continue to try to con referees to gain an advantage in this way.