So because Suarez dives, he shouldn't actually get a penalty when he is legitimately fouled in the box? I think that's the misunderstanding here.
He dives and we ALL agree on that, there's no debate there. But that doesn't excuse that fact that he's being stamped on and having MMA-style elbow attacks committed on him and he's not even being given those decisions. His reputation is going before him with referees and that is plain wrong. Clearly his reputation is going before him on here too, as because he's a diver then he shouldn't ever get a foul.
He gets stamped on, that is assault and violent conduct, agreed? But because he dives (again), that's more newsworthy to the media and to other fans rather than the fact that violence is surely worse than cheating? The media here were obsessed with the dive, yet gave the stamp (which left bruising on Suarez's chest) barely a mention.
And what happens on this site is that we mention he's not getting decisions from incidents like being stamped on or elbowed and the only response from some people is "But he dives!" like that's a valid excuse for not flagging up blatant fouls on him. Each decision should be based on its own merit, regardless of his reputation.
Think of it the other way. Say you have a player who never collects a booking. But then he stamps on someone and the referee turns a blind eye to it because it's only X player whos's so clean-cut that he'd never commit a foul so it couldn't possibly be a foul.
Then you have Suarez who does dive and has a massive reputation for diving. He goes to ground and refs, media, other fans, all immediately think he's dived. It takes video replays to show whether it was or wasn't but the fact is that people's first thought are that it's a dive. Was it Lee Mason who reffed against Stoke? If another player had gone down and been stamped on, I'm pretty sure Mason would've had a proper look at the situation. But because it's Suarez, who cares?
That is our point. Because he dives, it doesn't excuse refs from actually looking at each incident with a clear mind that two players were involved in an incident, regardless of the name on the back of the shirt. Instead, it's Suarez, he must have dived.
Regardless of missing "sitters", not giving a penalty for a clear foul is wrong and that possible penalty could have won the game. Or are we also going to change the rules and say that goals scored from penalties that win games only count if you don't miss sitters during the match?
Suarez does need to cut it out and maybe that will help with future decisions. But at the end of the day, referees should be basing their decisions based on the specifics of that incident and not based on prejudice regarding a certain player.
Anyway, not sure why I bothered posting all of that and my earlier post. I've just committed the same thing I complained about before, repeating what I said months ago. At the end of the day, people are set on their opinions and huge posts like these aren't going to change anyone's mind anyway so that was a waste of time
Hopefully it gets my point across at least but in any case, there's no point continuing with this as we both have our own beliefs and not likely to change them based on what some post on here says