Soccer Improvement Idea: Deter Exaggerated Falls

The theatrics surrounding faked and grossly exaggerated fouls in soccer has been a topic of significant discussion during this year's World Cup. Occasionally, the referee will penalize the actor, and instead give them a yellow card. But it doesn't happen often.

I have an idea. Why not use replay to assign those exaggeration yellows, after-the-fact? They wouldn't necessarily have to affect the current game at all--the deterrence factor would come in with the fact that a player receiving 2 yellow cards in a stage must sit out the next game.

The beauty of this approach is that it would leverage the power of replay, without disrupting the prized flow of the game. And it does seem like it would have a lot of deterrent power. When all the Actor has to worry about is the position of the on-field ref, they can make a calculation that their exaggeration will be undetectable. But with TV cameras at all angles, there is no calculating that you can get away with it.