###even more penaltys

there were more dubious penalty decisions over the weekend with the main discussion point coming from the East of London where West Ham met Chelsea.

Not only did Frank Lampard, the Chelsea and England midfielder have to re-take the penalty three times, but after finally scoring, and later on in the game, another penalty should have been given to West Ham when Carvallho, the Chelsea defender completely barged West Hams Franco out of the way. It was not seen by the referee and nothing was given.

But for the television cameras these days, us viewers would also have been none the wiser. No one can possibly blame the referee these days when it comes to every decision. It is time for the game to change but one feels that with Sepp Blatter at the healm of FIFA nothing will change soon. A quick look at a replay takes at most 10-15 seconds. A decision can be made and the game will continue with a fairer attitude.

Until that happens football, unlike other sports such as cricket and rugby will remain an unfair game with players continuing to cheat by diving, fouling and swearing. The players know they can get away with it, fortunately there are only a minority of players who endeavour to cheat at football and the public knows who they are.

Certain bans that could be brought in would stop the cheaters, for example a 5 match ban for a dive would stop anyone falling over like they had been shot, swearing at the referee should result in a red card and a three match ban until repsect to the referee is shown as it is in rugby.

It will not happen though, as Blatter said himself, football would not be football without the controversy. Well if he wants a game that can be won or lost on the actions of a cheat then it is time he abdicated. Unfortunately even the best online bookmakers do not offer odds on this.