In the good name of earnestness, let me start by airing my biases: I am a San Jose Earthquakes fan.

Though I am not, nor have I ever been (excepting a trip to Santa Cruz for a friend’s wedding) remotely connected to the Quakes by geographical proximity – or any other sort of tangible connection, for that matter – I’ve followed the franchise quite closely for the last three seasons, from the funky stench of the league’s cellar to the sweet aroma of a 3-2 aggregate victory over the Red Bulls last November. 

I don’t know why I started following the Quakes. Perhaps it was some sort of translocative, vicarious manner of escaping soccer doldrums of sans-MLS Louisiana, a polar attraction to a landscape so unlike flat, hot, nasty bayous for beautiful beaches. Maybe it’s because my favorite color is blue, or Frank Yallop’s accent intrigues me.

Regardless, when I made the commitment to follow MLS, I hopped on the Earthquake bandwagon, and I’ve ridden it proudly to where I am today.

So when I saw Brandon McDonald red-carded Saturday night for an apparent elbow to the throat of Columbus’ Tom Heinemann and watched the latter do his best Sergio Busquets-face-grabbing impersonation, perhaps my skepticism as to the justification of a straight red card was based on a skewed support for the Earthquakes.

Then I watched the replay.

I won’t deny that McDonald brings his left arm back to clear Heinemann’s grip on his back. I will, however, question why Heinemann needed at least two seconds to react to the “blow,” or why its impact to his core resulted in painful sensations in his throat and face. For an athlete playing at the highest level of a sport so dependent on quick-twitch muscle movement, I’m concerned that Heinemann’s central nervous system isn’t up to snuff.

Sarcasm aside, Heinemann cheated. He not only took a dive, but embellished the repercussions of the collision in a direct attempt to get a player sent off. Brandon McDonald has appealed his suspension, and, as objectively as I can, I believe his ban should be transferred to Heinemann.

Moreover, for the sake of the development of the sport in this country, I believe MLS should use this as an introduction to policy banning player embellishment and actively punishing instances of such behavior.

Anyone who watched the most recent series of El Classico matches understands what diving, flopping, and embellishment does to a game. Barcelona, who play the most beautiful football in the world, disgraced themselves with play-acting and childish foppery, denigrating the world’s greatest footballing rivalry to a series of tantrums and fit-throwing.

Maybe that passes in Spain. Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions show Spain have far lower levels of masculinity than the United States, so perhaps that decrease of assertiveness and competitiveness broaden the cultural gap between footballers’ actions on the field.

Regardless, the greatest knock against the world’s beautiful game is the flopping and the diving prevalent in the sport. I can’t tell you how many friends I have whose budding interests in the game were stomped out by a player deceitfully rolling around on the pitch, clutching his untouched face like he got the Harvey Dent treatment.

MLS, the U.S. Soccer Federation, and the everyday American soccer fan must do everything it can to prevent this type of behavior from cross the Atlantic and making itself commonplace in MLS.

There are several ways this end can be achieved. First, the league must form a review board whose only job is to crack down on flopping. Let me distinguish here between diving and flopping. Diving is feeling contact and going down to earn the foul. Once down, however, the player no longer sells the foul. This is an unfortunate, but unavoidable part of the game. How does one, after all, judge what is sufficient contact to warrant a fall? Take Luke Rodgers’ earned PK against Heath Pearce this weekend for example. There was certainly contact, but Rodgers certainly fell easily, and MLS has no business determining if Rodgers should have stayed on his feet, nor can it be expected to.

Flopping, on the other hand, is either 1) falling without any contact; 2) falling with contact and lying about the degree and location of the impact; or 3) a combination of 1) and 2). It is a much clearer, and much more detrimental, form of deceit than diving.

To combat flopping, the MLS should establish a review board consisting entirely of former professional players, preferably 5 or 7, who respond to complaints like McDonald’s by reviewing the film. Similar to NFL reviews, if the evidence of flopping is conclusive enough for a majority of the review board to overturn the ruling, the fouler is not only exonerated from guilt and suspension, but the flopper is suspended for three games and fined.

MLS should also consider in-game propositions to curb flopping. For example, any player stretchered off the pitch, as Dani Alves was for Pepe’s red card, should not be able to re-enter the game. I also wouldn’t mind seeing teams play shorthanded the game after a player has flopped to further discourage the practice.

Fans and media can also help put a stop to it. Public derision has proven to be an extremely effective way of curtailing ridiculous behavior — just ask Charlie Sheen.

Maybe my proposed measurements are extreme. Flopping is very subjective, and trying to legislate against subjectivity is like trying to catch a fish with bare hands. But if MLS’s goal is to become a major sporting league in this country, it’s going to have to provide an honest product to fans and hold its players accountable to a higher standard.

There are many things the MLS can learn from Europe’s top leagues to improve itself. How to gain an advantage through flopping, however, isn’t one of them, and America would do well to redefine the game in its own way by putting a stop to it.