Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 9y

Cristiano Ronaldo 'dive' for Real Madrid should be punished - Jonny

Cristiano Ronaldo has been accused of diving to win a penalty in Real Madrid's 3-0 win between the teams last Saturday by Celta Vigo full-back Jonny, who said it would be more "honourable" if the superstar admitted he had been wrong to trick the referee.

Ronaldo has received much praise for scoring his 23rd career La Liga hat trick in the game at the Bernabeu. However, there has been less focus on his actions for the first goal -- a penalty converted after he had tumbled to the ground following minimal contact from Jonny as both players crossed the 18-yard line.

The Spain under-21 international told a news conference that some kind of retrospective punishment should be introduced for such things, which are not good for the image of football in general.

"I really do think that these type of actions must be punished," Jonny said. "In the end it dirties football a bit. If we were all honourable in these type of plays, there would be less whistles for referees and they would have things much easier. We must help the referees.

"We have already seen many times that players dive and later recognised afterwards that there was no foul. That would be honourable on his [Ronaldo's] part."

Jonny said he did not think the reigning holder of the Ballon d'Or -- who is favourite to win the award again next month -- was a cheat by nature, however in this case the referee had been fooled and the incident had gone a long way to deciding a game which had been even up until it occurred.

"[Ronaldo] does not seem like a cheat to me," he said. "We all pull some tricks sometimes, we have all thrown ourselves down on some occasion, whether through our momentum or for whatever reason.

"It was a big moment to go 1-0 up in a very open game, but later you must recognise they deserved to win.

"Players letting themselves fall happens often in games. In this case it was a quick action and Cristiano noticed contact, but not enough for a foul or to make him fall. He looked for a penalty, the referee bought it and whistled. Then we were rowing against the current, and that against Madrid is very difficult."

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