The Ref Stop

Huddersfield vs Luton - Hair Pulling

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The Ref Stop
Not sure he tried to pull his hair, but he did. With VAR I don't think that gets given, but at EFL level they get one look at it. Perhaps he shouldn't have tried to pull the shirt?
 
RefereeX said:
Not a criticism of the officials because they only get one look and the expectation on hair pulls is clear, but I do think we're entering dangerous territory on it. This is not a violent act. I think there needs to be some clarification.
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The other player "sold it" to the ref but the force used was negligible.

I think the sent-off player was a little harshly done by BUT if you go to grab a shirt and get it wrong you are liable.
 
RefereeX said:
Not a criticism of the officials because they only get one look and the expectation on hair pulls is clear, but I do think we're entering dangerous territory on it. This is not a violent act. I think there needs to be some clarification.
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There were far more hair pulls that weren't given as reds before the recent glut of red cards. Perhaps a consequence of football laws being 'reinterpreted' to suit the use of VAR
The law hasn't changed.

I'm not comfortable with the use of more than negligible force being used as a determining factor as in law that only applies to striking.
 
Kent Ref said:
BUT if you go to grab a shirt and get it wrong you are liable.
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Disagree. Neither the shirt grab nor the accidental hair pull amounted to a careless act for me. Not saying the guy with the long hair is at fault here but a consequence of having loose long hair like that is that from time to time it may get caught.

This reminds me of a team I refereed a few years ago with a guy who had a very large piercing hole (about an inch and half wide) in his ear lobe. He had to cover it with medical tape or no game. I never had to ask him as he was more concerned about it than I was. I wonder if something similar should apply to hair like this.
 
This one feels a better defence than Keane's ones was of unintentionally of pulling the hair but I do agree clarity is needed when it comes to whether it's a red or not but then the downside to that, you can create grey areas of how forceful does it need to be to determine the difference between unsporting and violent conduct.
 
Paul_10 said:
This one feels a better defence than Keane's ones was of unintentionally of pulling the hair but I do agree clarity is needed when it comes to whether it's a red or not but then the downside to that, you can create grey areas of how forceful does it need to be to determine the difference between unsporting and violent conduct.
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Isn’t that kinda what we do on all “Orange” plays?
 
In most cases, we would struggle to justify a red card for endangering the safety or excessive force for a hair pull. If we want to justify a red card for hair pulling, which I think we do (definitely not biased by my long hair), we need to fall back on brutality, an act which is “savage, ruthless or deliberately violent”. For me, this comfortably describes most deliberate hair pulls (deliberately pulling someone’s hair feels like the definition of “deliberately violent”). However, I don’t think we can justify in Law a red card for an accidental hair pulls such as the one in question (but not the Keane one, that was deliberate for me) unless it used excessive force or endangered the safety of the opponent. This pull clearly did not use excessive force, and whilst it might have hurt, it did not endanger the safety of the opponent.
 
This red card was appealed by Huddersfield Town but the appeal was rejected and the 4 match ban stood (3 matches for the "offence" + 1 match for it being the second straight red card he's received this season)
 
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