Former referee takes aim at Hearts and Rangers duo - 'they should be ashamed of themselves'

Vargas and Cantwell have both been criticised for acts of simulation at the weekend

Former SPFL referee Steve Conroy says that Hearts forward Kenneth Vargas and Rangers playmaker Todd Cantwell should both be “ashamed of themselves” following acts of simulation over the weekend.

Vargas was booked in the latter stages of Hearts’ 1-0 win over St Johnstone for trying to win a penalty with a dive, while Cantwell has been widely criticised for going down with barely any contact during Rangers’ 1-1 draw with Aberdeen. Conroy believes that the only way to stamp out such acts is to make them red-card offences.

On the incident involving Vargas, Conroy said: “It’s shocking, absolutely shocking. You can dress it up any which way you want but it’s cheating. It was appalling, and it was made worse because it was so blatant. Footage of this has been beamed all around the world and everyone can see that Vargas is a cheat. But it doesn’t seem to affect him, or players like him.

Hearts' Kenneth Vargas goes down in the box during the match against St Johnstone.

“The only way to cut this out is make it a red card offence – and if you’re not sent off during the game, you should be given a red card retrospectively. The thing that gets me is that they must practice this. The way Vargas went down was wholly unnatural. You don’t do a double salchow if you’re tripped and it’s astonishing, they always look up at the ref when they land.

Continuing on atlindex.com, Conroy added: “Todd Cantwell’s dive at Pittodrie was just as bad. The pair of them should be ashamed of themselves. It’s only FIFA or IFAB that can do something about this. They need to take affirmative action to stamp this out of the game.”