Fabio Capello has spelt out his dislike of diving but the England head coach admitted he would not "kill" one of his players if they did it to win a match.

Capello may be from Italy, where diving is sometimes viewed as part and parcel of football, but he insists he strongly disapproves of such cheating.

The England boss was speaking at the Global Sport Summit in London, where he also expressed his surprise at how good the players were when he first took over at the start of 2008, and at how he has learned lessons from other sports when he was sporting director of Milan.

Capello said: "I don't like the divers, never. The spirit of sport is to win correctly.

"Sometimes the decision of the referees is not good but I don't like divers."

Asked what his reaction would be if one of his players dived to win a match, he replied: "I cannot kill him but I don't like this, I don't like diving."

Capello admitted he arrived in England with low expectations after the national side had failed to qualify for Euro 2008 under Steve McClaren, and soon realised that the fear factor was a big problem.

He added: "I remember the first training session and I was surprised because the players were really good.

"And I thought 'What has happened here, they are good players so why are they not playing in the European Championships?'.

"I understood everything when they played Switzerland in the first match, the same players who played well in training played with fear, with no confidence, and I said this is a big problem of the mind.

"Step by step, game after game, we have improved a lot."

Capello is known as a disciplinarian. Players have to all arrive together to eat, mobile phones and flip-flops are banned at meal times and too much golf is frowned upon.

But he said that is part of his campaign to instil respect between players.

"I don't understand why anyone would not respect the coaches or other people you work with," he said.

"I cannot understand why 20 players have to wait for two players that arrive too late or why they don't respect the rules."

When Capello was sporting director of Milan, he had overall control of the club's rugby union, baseball, volleyball and ice hockey sides - he even signed Australia's legend rugby player David Campese for Milan and said he learned from each of them.

He added: "It's really, really important to know the psychology of different players in different sports, it was important for me to improve my psychology.

"Rugby and ice hockey is about fighting, volleyball is a system of movement on the pitch and in baseball you have to stay concentrated for a long time to catch one ball."