Neil Cameron: Do we need to grow up about diving in football?

It certainly would not make it onto the back pages or cause any sort of debate, heated or otherwise, on radio and television. The captain of the team which felt they were wronged would probably not come out and call the supposed culprit a cheat.

Diving happens in other leagues. All the time. Indeed, if a player felt a touch inside the box, which Jamie Walker of Hearts claimed happened to him against Celtic on Sunday afternoon, then he is expected to go down in search of a penalty kick.

READ MORE: Celtic captain Scott Brown: Jamie Walker's dives belong in Rio

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of a foreign dressing room turning on one of their own for the heinous crime of staying on their feet when a centre-half has dared to lay a finger on him.

So is diving that big a deal?

Celtic supporters, who were rightly unhappy with the antics of Walker, may think back to 2001 and the club’s very first Champions League match. After battling back to 2-2 in Turin, Joos Valgaeren touched Nicola Amoruso’s sleeve, the Juventus man went down as it he had been shot, the referee pointed to the spot and the Italian, utterly unmoved by the protestations going on around him, scored.

"I do admit that it was definitely not a penalty," admitted Amoruso a few years later. “I had only been on the pitch for a few minutes, there was one ball in the box, and the Celtic player was near me. It was never a penalty, but the referee gave me the decision and I scored it.”

Amoruso wasn’t proud of what he did but neither was he ashamed. The Italian press at the time certainly didn’t criticise him. The man had done his job.

READ MORE: Celtic captain Scott Brown: Jamie Walker's dives belong in Rio

This is more or less the same in most leagues. It’s not that they encourage such antics; rather, they see it as part of the game and those who get on their high horse really need to get a grip and grow up.

They have a point. Our teams still seem incapable of working out that when they go abroad the wrestling which goes on inside the penalty box at every set-piece, which is part of the game in Scotland, is asking for trouble.

And if one of our of defenders is penalised when an opponent takes a tumble after the softest of touches then it’s not as if he hadn’t known what was coming.

This is what Walker was saying. Kieran Tierney went for the ball and pulled out of the tackle. The Hearts striker also went for the ball and in his own words “felt contact, so I went down.” Like the man in Turin from 15 years ago, he then scored his penalty.

Two things about this. Firstly, Walker did cheat, if that’s not too harsh a word, and it is right he is criticised for it.

But secondly all supporters are hypocrites. If their team wins a dodgy penalty or free-kick then it’s a simply case of that’s what happens in football.

In terms of Celtic you don’t have to search the memory too intensively to recall incidents when they got the bounce of the ball.

Georgios Samaras won a penalty a few years back against Spartak Moscow which fitted easily into the doubtful category. The foul which led to Shunsuke Nakamura putting the ball into the net at Celtic Park from 30 yards was, well, not a foul. Go look back on the challenge put in by Nemanja Vidic on Jiri Jarosik that night and tell me truthfully whether it’s a free kick or not.

Both those games were won by Celtic and on both occasions the club reached the last 16 of the Champions League. Did any supporter afterwards spent too much time worrying that their team had carried a bit of fortune?

Of course not and if Celtic reach the Champions League this season and Leigh Griffiths ‘wins’ a penalty against Real Madrid then would that make him out to be a cheat or simply a clever centre-forward playing the game?

Despite all of this, it is still a good thing that we in Scotland look down on players who dive, such as Walker who no matter what he tries to say was at it on Sunday. He conned referee John Beaton and if I were him I’d stay away from Scott Brown, who called him a cheat, for the foreseeable future.

Our game might not be where we want it to be; however, the fact we still frown up such behaviour is to our credit and Walker should be ashamed of himself. It’s not the done thing in the Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership and the way he threw himself on the ground was, frankly, embarrassing.

And that is perhaps the point because when it comes to diving, us Scots are just not every good at it.