Players do it all the time. They see where the opponent's leg is, or where their leg will be and deliberately run into it, then make out they were fouled.
About time VAR stamped it out, and that would happen if they had players as VAR referees who know the difference.
As one myself with a certain "fetish", I know how myself how to "draw in" the possibility of being trodden on or even kicked. I'm useless with the ball but would probably be quite good at "drawing" fouls, as they put it.
I've seen Harry Kane run between a defender chasing a ball not to play the ball himself but to stop so the player runs into him, and then claim he was "pushed". I also saw Arsenal get a penalty against Spurs where the forward completely missed the ball then ran into the player who had positioned himself to block the cross. A couple of weeks later Spurs themselves got a similar penalty against Aston Villa.
I also dislike penalty shoot-outs as a way to decide big tournaments. There are better ways.
(One such idea is "armageddon" style extra-time, maybe as a 3rd period of extra time. One team players with fewer players but the other team HAS to win, or the one that has fewer players wins.
You could play extra time as two such periods, each time playing with reduced players, and see what has happened at the end of it. At least there's more chance of there being goals. How about 11 vs 8?)
