Leeds United manager Daniel Farke wants the authorities to find a solution for players feigning injury in order to create an advantage for their teams following his side’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester City on Saturday.
In the second half of the Premier League clash, City manager Pep Guardiola was able to give a brief team talk to his outfield players, while goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma received medical treatment.
The interruption to the match came with Leeds United in the ascendancy, causing problems for their hosts with a 5-3-2 shape Farke instigated at half-time. City were struggling, and their players needed intervention from Guardiola.
In his post-match press conference, Farke said: “Everyone knows why he went down, right? It’s not like the elephant in the room. It’s more like you can speak about it. You can ask me what I think about why he went down. It was obvious.”
Farke acknowledges there was nothing illegal in a player requiring treatment and the rest of the team using that moment to speak to their coach. However, he did not feel it was in the right spirit of fair play.
He added: “It’s within the rules. It’s smart. If I like it, if it’s in the sense of fair play, if it should be like this, I keep it to myself.
“I leave it with the authorities to find solutions for it. It’s within the rules. I asked the fourth official at this point, ‘Do you want to do something?’ He said, ‘No, our hands are tied. We can’t do anything’.
“We know this happens, but if we don’t educate our players in football, what to do in terms of fair play, sportsmanship and you just try to bend the rules to your advantage, you can even do a fake injury in order to do an additional team talk, it’s nothing I personally like.
“If it’s within the rules, I can’t complain about it. We should think about how we can deal with it, and also how we educate it.”
Guardiola was asked about the incident in his post-match press conference and said, “I didn’t speak with Gigi. I know what happened (and) when it happened, I looked back to the dugout to say, ‘James, warm up’. Honestly, I don’t know. Next press conference, you can ask me, I will ask Gigi.”
A valiant effort saw Leeds come back from a two-goal first-half deficit to draw level before a stoppage-time goal from Phil Foden secured all three points for the home side.