Forged your thoughts again to August 2022. Tottenham defender Cristian Romero tugged again Chelsea‘s Marc Cucurella by his hair.
The VAR, Mike Dean, opted to not intervene for an apparent crimson card.
It created a line within the sand. From that time on, a zero tolerance strategy was adopted.
Has the hair been tugged? Then it’s a crimson card for violent conduct.
A strict software means we’ve to simply accept that there are circumstances, like Keane and Martinez, the place the punishment seems too extreme.
It’s a bit like handball within the Champions League. Individuals don’t like among the penalties, however they know what they’re getting.
If you would like consistency then you definitely can’t have frequent sense too.
After the Keane crimson card, referees’ boss Howard Webb was very clear that hair pulling was “fairly an offensive factor”.
“It was the suitable end result,” Webb mentioned. “It was uncommon but when we see it once more subsequent week it is going to be the identical end result.”
It took a number of months earlier than we did see it in related circumstances with Martinez, and Webb was proved to be appropriate.
There has solely been one different VAR crimson card within the Premier League, for Southampton’s Jack Stephens on Cucurella.
There have been a number of different cases within the Membership World Cup, Girls’s Tremendous League and Girls’s Euros.
Hair pulling is a kind of darkish arts which is often solely noticed by means of video proof.
It occurs off the ball however is extra identifiable than the delicate elbow to the chest or a nip to the abdomen.
Even within the EFL, which doesn’t have VAR, Ipswich’s Leif Davis was just lately banned after being picked up on digital camera pulling the hair of Leicester’s Caleb Okoli.
Proof is just not all the time clear, nonetheless.
Fulham‘s Kenny Tete may have been despatched off for yanking the hair of Manchester Metropolis‘s Antoine Semenyo in February. It might properly have occurred, however the VAR didn’t really feel the proof was conclusive sufficient for a evaluate.
