CRYSTAL PALACE manager Sam Allardyce labelled yesterday the introduction of retrospective bans for players who dive or feign injury from next season as “utter rubbish.”

The new offence of “successful deception of a match official” is based on a law already used in Scotland and was approved at the FA’s annual general meeting at Wembley.

Incidents will be reviewed by a panel comprised of an ex-manager, ex-player and an ex-referee, and they watch the footage independently.

If they are unanimous in believing a player deceived a match official, the sanction will be a two-match ban.

However, Allardyce believes the new system will not work and once again banged the table for the use of video technology in football.

“It’s utter rubbish,” said the former England manager. “Because what about the lad that gets booked who didn’t dive? What are they going to do with that?

“They are going to say: ‘That’s unlucky. Next time we will try and get that right.’

“So the lad that dives gets punished but the lad that gets punished when he didn’t dive, the referee punishes him and they will have to reverse that somehow.

“So bring technology in and we can look at it on the day.

“And then bring a sin bin in so we can put him in the sin bin for 10 minutes and then put him back on and stop paying all these people money to do rubbish situations in the game. That’s utter rubbish.”

The process is similar to the one already used for red-card offences which were missed at the time but caught on camera, and the cases will be fast-tracked.

The FA said: “Although attempts to deceive the referee by feigning injury or pretending to have been fouled is a cautionable offence for unsporting behaviour, the fact that the act of simulation has succeeded in deceiving a match official and, therefore, led to a penalty and/or dismissal, justifies a more severe penalty which would act as a deterrent.”

If a player admits to a charge of successfully deceiving an official, or is found to have done so, any yellow or red card given to an opposing player, as a result of the deceit, can be rescinded.

The new rule will apply across English football and has been supported by the English Football League, the League Managers Association, the Premier League and the Professional Footballers’ Association.

The Scottish Football Association introduced its “rule 201” in 2011 and spent several years trying to convince Fifa that is was not going too far in taking decision-making away from officials on the day — something world football’s governing body has traditionally been very reluctant to do.