The Ref Stop

Man United Vs Leeds - Hair Pulling

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one said:
Remove the word 'premeditated' then I'd agree.


Define instinctive movement. Instinctive moment for a footballing action deserves other considerations. If a player's instinctive movement is to pull another player's hair, I dont think football stakeholder generally would, neither should, expect any other considerations.
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By definition, you still agree with my previous top statement, you'd just like it loosening slightly too ;)

By instinctive, I mean if it's part of an attempt to gain balance by grabbing the opponent that ultimately accidentally grabs hair or similar. It's arguably still a deliberate action, but its not a deliberate hair pull.
 
The Ref Stop
Again I think this is where the LOTG are outdated and need sorting. Things to add:

Unacceptable sporting conduct - hair pulling, genital grabbing etc. = red card

Making physical contact with a referee = red card

Little things that just should be in there but are not. Football will always come up with excuses as to why a decision is wrong, especially if you are used to it being done a different way, or if you have any bias at all. But I think adding a couple of added pages will just clarify.

Pulling hair in football just doesn’t fit in the game, for me. Accidental or not, it is up to the player to control their actions.
 
bester said:
@Ryanj91 The debate is that the only justification for violent conduct in law is the use of excessive force.


On Monday Night Football they showed an extract from the PGMO hand book around hair pulling and presented it as law.

@JamesL did you show something from IFAB that said that hair pulling could be considered an offensive action?
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Wouldn't any type of hair pull be under 'excessive force'?

It's not a footballing action and therefore any force behind pulling hair would be deemed excessive?
 
Ryanj91 said:
Wouldn't any type of hair pull be under 'excessive force'?

It's not a footballing action and therefore any force behind pulling hair would be deemed excessive?
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I see this argument on here a lot and I can't get behind it, and I also don't think it was ever intended by the law makers.

Pushing someone is a non footballing action so any force could be thought to be excessive, yet pushing someone confrontationally is accepted as a yellow card for unsporting behaviour.

The better argument for violent conduct would be that the hair is an extension of the head therefore the force only needs to not be negligible.
 
RefereeX said:
The better argument for violent conduct would be that the hair is an extension of the head therefore the force only needs to not be negligible.
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The 'negligible' or not clause only applies for striking the head. The head can still be pulled/pushed CRUEF or in an unlikely fair manner. The same can not be said about hair. At least I dont think it should.
 
To mention spitting and biting in the same breath as hair pulling (not least as most cases of the latter are accidental/careless or reckless at a stretch), is ridiculous. Spitting/Biting is vulgar and completely unacceptable, whereas this hair-pulling business usually merits a yellow card at worst. A pathetic recent issue in the men's game (But not the women's where it often goes unpunished, ironically)
 
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bester said:
@Ryanj91 The debate is that the only justification for violent conduct in law is the use of excessive force.


On Monday Night Football they showed an extract from the PGMO hand book around hair pulling and presented it as law.

@JamesL did you show something from IFAB that said that hair pulling could be considered an offensive action?
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Not sure but done a dig and pulled out a reply to a facebook post:

Screenshot_20260414-170333.png
 
I think there are a number of factors here. It happening so soon after the very clear missed red card in the WCL game will no doubt have led to it being front of mind of all officials. I do tend to agree that the force used here was negligible when compared to other hair pulling incidents, but there was still some force when there is no doubt there should have been zero. Had it somehow been an accidental pull I would have more sympathy, but I don't believe it was as (a) I don't believe you can accidentally pull someone's hair and (b) he had two attempts to grab it.

Was he a bit unlucky, possibly, but it feels very much a case of play stupid games and win stupid prizes. In taking the action to pull DCL's hair he has given the VAR, and subsequently the referee, a decision to make. A decision that wouldn't have existed had he not done it, and perhaps Carrick should be reminding him of that rather than saying it was one of the worst refereeing decisions ever. Whilst we agree red card or not, it certainly doesn't come anywhere even vaguely close to that description.
 
The Athletic has an article about hair pulling (behind a paywall). The arrticle quotes Webb:

“It just crosses that line of acceptable behaviour on the field of play,” he said. “If you start pulling people’s hair, there’s absolutely no reason to do that. People don’t want to see that happening. And therefore players understand. In most circumstances, it will be seen as more than negligible contact when you start tugging hair, and you’re going to get a red card.”​
 
socal lurker said:
The Athletic has an article about hair pulling (behind a paywall). The arrticle quotes Webb:

“It just crosses that line of acceptable behaviour on the field of play,” he said. “If you start pulling people’s hair, there’s absolutely no reason to do that. People don’t want to see that happening. And therefore players understand. In most circumstances, it will be seen as more than negligible contact when you start tugging hair, and you’re going to get a red card.”​
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Agree with that, apart from the bit about the players understanding. They clearly don't given they keep doing it, and their managers back them 🤷‍♂️
 
I hope PGMO keeps up its stringent approach to this, I'm confident that those few players still tempted to pull hair will soon get the message and this may then give the authorities some food for thought about how to address the more prevalent problem behaviours affecting our game.
 
I think we’ve got hung up on the excessive force part of VC. Brutality is also there which literally includes “deliberately violent” in its definition. A deliberate hair pull could certainly fall under that. This was deliberate for me (I’m kind of envious of how Pollyannaish those who think it was accidental are lol).
 
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