Patrick Vieira - Players should cheat

Germany took on Portugal and is usually the case Germany won, this time by 4-0 but Portugal went down to 10 men after 37 minutes when Pepe was rightly sent off.

The issue though was that Thomas Müller was gently caught by a flailing hand and went down clutching his face as if in pain. The referee played on but Pepe took exception to the German feigning injury in an attempt to get him in trouble.

It is blatant cheating but Pepe inexplicable lowered his head while Müller was sitting on the floor and gently head butted him.




Patrick Vieira was very animated in the studio at half-time. His message was that Müller feigning injury to get a player booked or sent off was perfectly acceptable. He saw nothing wrong in those actions at all and was quite forceful in his view going on to indicate players should continue cheating until a law is passed to stop them doing it.

Even children know right from wrong Mr Vieira, don't you think grown adults paid a fortune should know too.

That is a disgraceful message to teach all the young children watching, cheating in acceptable. Children look up to these people, children copy these people, like it or not they have a duty as role models to pass on the right messages. They are played huge sums of money and part and parcel of that is image.

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Football wants to break into the huge American market, it is making progress but this sort of blatant cheating and the many other incidences we seen leave the Americans cold.

Why should they embrace a sport that has players rolling all over the floor in agony when they haven't been touched or barely touched. Why embrace a sport that teachers their children to grow up as cheats with no respect for officials and therefore no respect for anyone in authority. Because if you accept it in one walk of life it will cross over into another.

Perhaps FIFA are hoping these children they are teaching to cheat will become the next FIFA officials because we know what fine upstanding citizens they are. I believe they are due for another one man election process next year.

Fair play to former Arsenal right-back Lee Dixon who said it was totally unacceptable behaviour and players should not do it, it is cheating.