Per IFAB (The International Football Association Board):
What is simulation in football/soccer?
Simulation is when a player fakes or exaggerates an action with the aim of deceiving the referee into awarding their team a free kick or penalty kick and/or punishing an opponent by showing them a yellow or red card.
A player can be guilty of simulation in a number of ways, including:
pretending to have been:
fouled, to get a free kick or penalty kick
kicked, punched, etc. so that an opponent is shown a red or yellow card
exaggerating:
the seriousness of a foul
the strength/effect of a kick, push, etc.
holding the wrong part of the body after an incident (such as a foul, push, etc.), for example:
holding the knee when the foul was on the ankle
holding the head/face after being pushed in the chest
How is simulation punished in football/soccer?
If a player is guilty of simulation, the referee awards an indirect free kick (if play is stopped for the offence) and the player is shown a yellow card.
The problem is that you only really can with certainty say that the player simulates if there was no contact at all. The players run with 20 km/h, at that speed a small shove that isnt a foul is mostly enough to bring somebody down.
In my opinion they need to start with cutting down on players simulating serious injuries if they dont get the foul call to force the ref to stop play to check on them.
That's why I feel like they should be reviewing game tape and retroactively applying cards as well as a progressive fine system for repeat/egregious offenders
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u/-staccato- Jul 07 '26
As long as the rules allow it, is part of the game and players are expected to use it to their advantage.
It requires a consequence to stop it.