Michael Owen Quotes

I played in the playoffs with teams that were known for flopping and you do not get respect.

Diving is a really, really difficult one because a player is the only one who genuinely knows whether they have dived. You can look at it at 40 different angles and not know. And you can just fall over, too.

A lot of players try to buy penalties, and sometimes defenders can't do a lot about it.

So, a flop is basically tricking the referee into thinking somebody fouled you or maybe elbowed you in the face.

Opponents know how to get the fouls and it's gone against me a couple of times.

There's nothing better than a good, blind referee.

LeBron is LeBron. They're not going to call offensive fouls on him. He gets to do what he wants.

There's some guys where I'm like, 'I won that fight and only lost because of the judges,' or I got cheated or whatever. I know I'm a better fighter.

There is no doubt that my former manager Sir Alex exerted an influence over some referees. He was the master of dropping a comment into his Friday press conference - for instance, how long it had been since we had been given a penalty, or the treatment meted out to a player like Cristiano Ronaldo.

I don't dive. I'm not a player who dives.

I don't get wrapped up in the politics of going down to win a penalty or getting an opponent sent off.

I find it quite funny to see players rolling over trying to win free-kicks or get opponents booked. I've never done that, even at an early age. My friends would have just laughed at me.

Why should I change my game if I don't even get a yellow card?

Cheating during bouts has always existed.

Players from Holland and Scandinavia aren't divers, but those from Spain and Italy go down far too easily for my liking.

I admit to becoming frustrated by the frequency of diving in the Champions League.

Ask a receiver, can we take his gloves off because he's catching the ball too well? Nobody is going to be overly happy about that.

We don't teach player development in that way, to be able to try to trick the officials or make sounds or jerk your head back.

It has more repercussion when the referee favours us than when we are harmed.

Ball-tampering has happened before. Bowlers and fielders have found different ways to get the ball roughened up on one side.

People just don't want to pay to see players diving around.

If a football official were to call for a slow-motion replay every time Didier Drogba fell over, each match would last about six weeks.

If you watch me play, you'll see how often I get kicked. I don't go off the pitch and cut myself to act like I've been kicked.

Soft playing destroys the integrity of the game of poker, and it's wrong - flat out wrong.

Malice is part of football, I wouldn't call it illegitimate.