Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) chief executive Gordon Taylor has said retrospective bans for diving could potentially be brought into English football for the 2017-18 season.
Taylor confirmed last month that a taskforce had been set up to look into the proposal, while talks have been taking place with the Scottish Football Association, which already issues retrospective two-match bans for simulation.
Taylor told The Times that the bans could be introduced from next season "if there is the will" among members, while FA chairman Greg Clarke told the newspaper: "We have got some feedback from Scotland which was positive, with some interesting questions raised as well.
"That has gone into the professional game board for discussion of 'How do we practically do this? How do we make it work?'"
In 2015, the FA had announced a new initiative that allowed for a disciplinary charge, potentially resulting in a three-match ban, if "a player attempts to have an opponent dismissed for violent conduct by faking injury or exaggeration." That applied in instances in which "the dismissed player is successful in overturning his sending-off and it is clear that the opposing player had not, for example, been struck as implied/claimed or at all."
Referees could also be given in-game assistance on some simulation decisions in the future as the Premier League has conducted trials with video assistant referees (VARs) this season, which allow an extra official to monitor games and alert the referee to incidents involving four specific situations, including penalty calls.
The other areas covered by VARs -- irregularities in the case of a goal decision, red card offences unnoticed by the referee, and cases of mistaken identity over a yellow or red card -- would not appear to assist with simulation decisions, though, and Mike Riley, managing director of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, has indicated that the system not be officially introduced in England until 2018 at the earliest.
VARs will be brought into the Bundesliga next season and the German Football League said this week that 45 incorrect calls could have been averted had the system been in place during the first 21 match days of the current campaign.