Faking an injury on international duty

Theo Walcott

This last midweek was all about international friendly games, where national team coaches should have had the chance to work with their best players for a couple of days. However, the timing of these friendlies wasn’t very good, as the clubs are facing crucial games in Europe and also very important period in domestic leagues. That is why some of the players have faked injuries and withdrew from the international duty but most of them will somehow recover in time for weekend games. This has become a common practice in almost all national teams and it is time to put an end to it.

Arsene Wenger has recently launched a plea for FIFA and UEFA to deal with this problem, as he was provoked by Walcott’s injury on international duty. Walcott is integral part of Wenger’s team and he will now miss three months for the shoulder injury, while he could have easily faked some other injury before the match with Germany and stay in England. I don’t want to say that all the players who withdrew from their national teams had faked injuries but there is a simple solution to this problem. If the player withdraws from international duty he cannot make a miraculous recovery in just three days. Therefore, the players that miss the national team game but play for the club next weekend should receive a big ban from the governing bodies and I think that is the only way to stop this from happening. I always thought that it is an honour for a player to represent his country but it seems that this has changed.

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