A good discussion, my view is that football has always been a contact sport. And it should remained that way, but because of the commercialism and other things, it is littered with these things, like diving.

To me, it is very hard to prove intent, as many innocuous looking tackle could be well planned. There are footballers who are very good at this, getting the ball and the man at the same time. However, there are stupid ones who went in with studs up, the infamous scissors tackle and many more aiming to get the man rather than the ball. To me, these should be banned for as long as the law allows it, throw the book at them, and better still, have an independent panel that could decide a certain percentage of the offender's wages to go to the victim, UNTIL THE VICTIM RECOVERS. Let's put it this way, banning them is nothing, even fining them a couple of week's wages is nothing, the best is to hit them where it hurts, make them pay for it.

Having said that, it is too hard to prove a mistimed tackle and a full on want that went with intend to hurt. Paul Scholes would be the best example, everyone knows that he can't tackle to save his life and yet he still dives into those tackles and getting himself sent off. Do you put it as "with intend"? or "mistimed"? This is because with such reputation, if he has an evil streak in him, he'd go in and aim to hurt and then claimed that "everyone knows that I can't tackle, sorry mate..."

The thing is that I'd like football to remain as it is, not into some non contact sport, but if these continues, it might disintegrate into some farce...