THERE’s a funny GIF doing the rounds this week.

It’s Neymar doing his thing.

No, not scoring goals, nor creating gilt-edged chances.

It’s him rolling and rolling and rolling after being caught going down the left wing against Mexico.

The “incident” led to the Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio declare: “Players acting is not a good example for football.”

Neymar’s response was: “I just feel the pain.”

He added: “It’s complicated. It’s not something I can control.”

You’re 26 Neymar. Grow up.

I’ve seen a few tweets on the matter over this last week; some defending him, some showing him appearing to be scared by a ghost.

There’s also one of him in a baby walker.

And while we’re at it, Pepe is quickly becoming my least favourite footballer ever.

And I have really disliked some players.

But what really made my mind up was, when he went down (no free kick given, obviously) and instead of trying to make up ground on the Uruguayan who had (legally) dispossessed him, he spent about ten seconds remonstrating with the referee who, to be fair to him, stopped just short of telling him in no uncertain terms where to go.

Ronaldo is guilty too. But less so of late, perhaps due to a real focus on his strength.

Just writing Ronaldo’s name has reminded me of Rivaldo waiting to take a corner against Turkey in 2002 when he was hit by a sniper’s bullet in the face.

Indeed we shouldn’t forget ITV pundit Slaven Bilic’s dive in the semi-final between Croatia and France in 1998.

It led to France centre back Laurent Blanc missing out on playing in (a) a World Cup Final, but also (b) a World Cup Final in his country’s home stadium.

He’s done just about enough since then for me to almost forgive him. I enjoyed Croatia playing under him and I’ve found him an honest manager and a decent pundit.

So, what can we do to stamp this out? We’ve tried cards and that has worked to an extent but, for me, it doesn’t happen enough.

Yes, I’m that boring fella who’d sit and tell you the ‘If I were a referee...’ story.

But I’ll spare you that this time round. Sort of.

For the second time in a week, I’m going to ask you to look at a few other sports, namely cricket and both codes of rugby.

Let’s take the rugby side first. The key difference is, by and large, the onus is on the attacking team as to when play is restarted.

So if a player is spending time shouting at a referee or writhing around on the ground, he or she is leaving a gap in the defensive line.

The result? Neither very rarely happen.

Couple that with only captains being allowed to speak to the referee and you get a game which is by and large free of the play acting and threatening behaviour towards the referee.

Plus, there is a lot of people pretending they’re not hurt when in fact they definitely are - which admittedly can have its own consequences.

Anyway, by the time you read this, you’ll either be in raptures or misery. I very much hope it’s the former.

Now, there is no doubting the man is a great player. And great players do end up being targeted.