LET us salute Didier Zokora, the man who brought the Gary Player Principle up to date. “You know what?” Player famously remarked. “The more I practise, the luckier I get.” Zokora was lucky for exactly the same reason on Sunday when he won the penalty that allowed Tottenham Hotspur to beat Portsmouth.

It was a beautiful dive, setting a new and dizzying standard for the dive of the season. For this was not one of those spontaneous, improvised, opportunistic dives, this was a dive premeditated, set up and, from the look of the thing, much rehearsed.

It was a dive that flowed, set up by the backheel, moving inexorably into the tumble in a place where the leg of Pedro Mendes clearly was not. He overbalanced, Martin Jol, the Spurs head coach, said, just as Guo Jingjing overbalanced on the three-metre board to win her gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

There are two relevant questions here. Does it really matter, when the bungs business is centre stage? And if it matters, what are we going to do about it?

First question first. Yes, it does matter. It matters as much as the bungs nastiness, perhaps more. Certainly, the casual corruption of football makes the whole game stink. It is made possible by a vile culture of greed, but it is only millionaires ripping off billionaires. It is not terribly edifying, no, but it doesn’t destroy my pleasure in a great goal, a great save, an end-to-end move, an inspired pass, a perfect tackle. It doesn’t destroy my pleasure in the flow and counterflow of football, the unfolding tale of a match.

But incidents such as the one involving Zokora are different. Zokora is guilty of destroying the pleasure that thousands of people were taking in the unfolding of a tense game of football. What is football without agents and money and chairmen? It is still football. What is football without drama and story and action? Nothing.

The escalation of diving is destructive of football. Diving makes us fed up with the business, persuades us to seek our sporting pleasures elsewhere. Diving robs football of its satisfying nature and it seems that there is nothing that can be done about it.

Chris Foy, the referee, was convinced by Zokora’s pretence and gave the penalty and that is the end of the matter. The cheat won. The cheat got away with it. This is not a terribly satisfactory outcome. And what’s more, it opens the way for more and more cheating.

Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, was shouting for instant video reviews of such incidents. But if that happens, it’s still a long way ahead. Let’s forget it for a moment. Instead, let us consider the ridiculous situation that football has got itself into.

The video shows that Zokora clearly dived. But football is still in thrall to the notion that the referee’s word is final. Therefore, in terms of football’s creaking laws, Zokora cannot be said to have dived and so cannot be punished.

The traditional notion of the infallible referee does not stand up with modern video technology. The answer, then, is to scotch the idea that the match official’s verdict is sacred.

Last week, cricket, supposedly even more of a stick-in-the-mud sport, made a judgment on the ball-tampering case that said the umpire was wrong, his word was not only not final, but could actually be overturned. Cricket has not collapsed as a result.

Football, obviously, should do the same. Not to alter the results of matches — that wouldn’t work. But the idea of retroactive justice is blindingly obvious. And here’s an interesting point: it already has been taken on.

This season, Ben Thatcher laid out Mendes — the same Mendes who was involved in the Zokora dive; not a lucky boy — and was shown a yellow card. This was amended later, after study of the video, to a ban of eight matches and a fine (imposed by his club, Manchester City) of six weeks’ wages.

When there is clear evidence of a footballing crime that the referee failed to spot, it seems that a retrospective punishment can he meted out. This should be done as a matter of course. That would mean a yellow card for Zokora; a bit feeble, but yellow cards generally lead to suspension. And it’s at least a public shaming.

Right now, a player can be seen by the world for the cheat he is, but still profit. This happened at the World Cup of 1986 with the “Hand of God” incident, when Diego Maradona, should you need reminding, scored for Argentina against England with his hand. In such a case, the result, however unjust, would stand, but Maradona would get a retrospective yellow card at least.

The principle of the finality of the referee’s word is not worth upholding; that’s because the principle that cheats can prosper is destroying the whole point of football.

BAD EXCUSES
Martin Jol’s claim that Didier Zokora’s dive was down to the player being off-balance continues a proud tradition of mind-boggling excuses . . .

BALLS When Newcastle could only draw away to Stevenage Borough in an FA Cup tie in 1998, Kenny Dalglish blamed it on the balls being too bouncy.

The Meaning of Sport
Readers can join Simon Barnes as he discusses his brilliant new book, The Meaning of Sport, with celebrated Times writers Lynne Truss and Sir Matthew Pinsent, on October 31 at 6.30pm at the Hong Kong Theatre in Aldwych, London

Tickets available from: www.foyles.co.uk or by calling 0870 4202777