More than one way to skin a cat for divers

Such are the peculiarities of footballing hysteria that a series of subtle, successfully-executed dives will bring about nothing like the binge of handwringing a bunch of botched, largely fruitless ones will.

So it was last weekend’s comedy collapses from Messrs Bale and Suarez that kicked off the latest wave of simulation recrimination rather than, say, the delightfully conceived and profitable tumble by Antonio Valencia at Anfield a fortnight before.

Suddenly the sharp practise of diving has gained official status as a ‘cancer within the game’, a diagnosis delivered, predictably, by Fifa vice-president Jim Boyce — his organisation as keen as always to identify other malignant growths in the sport besides its own bank balance.