Football's Worst Ever Cheating Divers

12. Kyle Lafferty

Diving to win a penalty is one thing - and I'm not for one second suggesting it is to be condoned at all - but there is a whole other level of play-acting that is designed to get an opponent sent off that should be punished to an even worse degree. Carrasco's example above might have been at the ridiculous end of the scale, but some players actually get away with it - Joey Barton has done it more than once, and Liverpool fans will adamantly insist that James Perch did it to get Pepe Reina sent off in a game at Newcastle United.

But Kyle Lafferty did it to arguably the best effect in a match against Aberdeen in which he conned the referee into sending off poor Charlie Mulgrew by pretending that the Aberdeen player had head-butted him. Mulgrew was promptly sent off, and Rangers won the game 2-1.

In the aftermath, Rangers fined their play-acting player, and he was forced to issue a public apology as well as a private one to the player. The referee in question, meanwhile, retired a week early.