Man United Vs Leeds - Hair Pulling

[deusex]

I really am unsure what the debate is about?

First action - normal and a footballing action jumping for the ball.
Second movement - yanks the hair.

Sorry, but I can't see anything other than a red.

If, however, it was all one action and chance involved, I could see why it's could be debatable.

I've yet to see any yanking of the hair in the 20 times I've watched the replay.
If this is VC then so is DCL's grab around the neck (not a RC either) and we'll have two red cards then.

A 3 match ban. Same as a headbutt or punch in the face. Pretty hard to compare.

 

[JamesL]

In most cases pulling someone hair is a savage act. I haven't seen this incident so I can't say for sure it it meets the threshold to be considered savage but I don't think we need a great deal of force before we arrive at the point of calling it violent conduct.

 

[one]

While I think hair pulling has to be a red, I can see the other side of the argument on the mild cases. You can never win with subjective decisions. When Romero pulled Cucurella's hair a few years back with no red card there was uproar. There was also a lot of noise for for VAR not intervening as it was deemed a clear an obvious red. Dammed if you do Dammed if you don't. And making it a sliding scale is just going to cause more problems (we will get to handball later). Players know, if you deliberately pull an opponent's hair you get an early shower. Just don't do it.

I don't buy the instinctive or he was going for the shirt argument. If a defender instinctively leans towards the ball to stop it from going into goal, if the ball hits the hand and it is away from the body, even if he was meant to chest it, it's a red.

We can make the hair pull similar to handball with all different conditions and still not get it right, or we can make it simple, players understand it and act at their own peril.

 

[RefereeX]

While I think hair pulling has to be a red, I can see the other side of the argument on the mild cases. You can never win with subjective decisions. When Romero pulled Cucurella's hair a few years back with no red card there was uproar. There was also a lot of noise for for VAR not intervening as it was deemed a clear an obvious red. Dammed if you do Dammed if you don't. And making it a sliding scale is just going to cause more problems (we will get to handball later). Players know, if you deliberately pull an opponent's hair you get an early shower. Just don't do it.

I don't buy the instinctive or he was going for the shirt argument. If a defender instinctively leans towards the ball to stop it from going into goal, if the ball hits the hand and it is away from the body, even if he was meant to chest it, it's a red.

We can make the hair pull similar to handball with all different conditions and still not get it right, or we can make it simple, players understand it and act at their own peril.

I can't disagree with the majority of what you say, but I don't think it's entirely comparable to handball on the goal line.
No player is at an advantage/ disadvantage for non-footballing reasons where as it does almost advantage players / teams with players with long hair, as it is more likely to get an accidental or instinctive pull while challenging.
I'm not disputing there's an argument to be more careful though. I don't know what the answer is... I just think the blanket zero tolerance approach doesn't help get the footballing public on side.

Back in the day most footballers had long hair... what happened then? (and thats a genuine question... I didn't watch football back then!)

 

[one]

I can't disagree with the majority of what you say, but I don't think it's entirely comparable to handball on the goal line.
No player is at an advantage/ disadvantage for non-footballing reasons where as it does almost advantage players / teams with players with long hair, as it is more likely to get an accidental or instinctive pull while challenging.
I'm not disputing there's an argument to be more careful though. I don't know what the answer is... I just think the blanket zero tolerance approach doesn't help get the footballing public on side.

Back in the day most footballers had long hair... what happened then? (and thats a genuine question... I didn't watch football back then!)

The problem is not accidental hair pull though. It is deliberate ones that should be a red card, 'instinctive' or not. We are not talking strictly zero tolerance. You jump for a header and your hand accidentally gets caught in an opponent's hair, likely scenario for me is careless foul. But if done deliberately to gain a 'space' advantage or for other reasons, its a red.

Silly comparison but its like saying short players are more likely to get kicked in the head so there should be some leniency for an instinctive kick to the head of a short player.

 

[RefereeX]

The problem is not accidental hair pull though. It is deliberate ones that should be a red card, 'instinctive' or not. We are not talking strictly zero tolerance. You jump for a header and your hand accidentally gets caught in an opponent's hair, likely scenario for me is careless foul. But if done deliberately to gain a 'space' advantage or for other reasons, its a red.

You seem to be skipping the grey area (well not skipping it, but combining it). For me, there should be a difference between a deliberate pull of someone's hair (when a player intends to pull another by the hair) and a situation where a player as part of a challenge attempts to grab a part of the player but ultimately grabs their hair without that being the intended place of grabbing. In your world, that's still a deliberate hair pull. In my world, it isn't. It's a deliberate act, but an accidental, or maybe a better term would be incidental, hair pull. It doesn't sit entirely comfortably to me that this should still be considered violent conduct and treated the same as a deliberate hair pull.

Silly comparison but its like saying short players are more likely to get kicked in the head so there should be some leniency for an instinctive kick to the head of a short player.

Touché

 

[JamesL]

You seem to be skipping the grey area (well not skipping it, but combining it). For me, there should be a difference between a deliberate pull of someone's hair (when a player intends to pull another by the hair) and a situation where a player as part of a challenge attempts to grab a part of the player but ultimately grabs their hair without that being the intended place of grabbing. In your world, that's still a deliberate hair pull. In my world, it isn't. It's a deliberate act, but an accidental, or maybe a better term would be incidental, hair pull. It doesn't sit entirely comfortably to me that this should still be considered violent conduct and treated the same as a deliberate hair pull.


Touché

Just saying that if it was part of a challenge it wouldn't be violent conduct...

 

[RefereeX]

Just saying that if it was part of a challenge it wouldn't be violent conduct...

Agree, but this is peoples issue with it, because arguably both the Keane and Martinez red cards were arguably part of challenges.

 

[JamesL]

Agree, but this is peoples issue with it, because arguably both the Keane and Martinez red cards were arguably part of challenges.

So they are serious foul play then was my point...

 

[RefereeX]

So they are serious foul play then was my point...

With you... but then both stadium announcements stated the players were sent off for violent conduct!

 

[one]

You seem to be skipping the grey area (well not skipping it, but combining it). For me, there should be a difference between a deliberate pull of someone's hair (when a player intends to pull another by the hair) and a situation where a player as part of a challenge attempts to grab a part of the player but ultimately grabs their hair without that being the intended place of grabbing. In your world, that's still a deliberate hair pull. In my world, it isn't. It's a deliberate act, but an accidental, or maybe a better term would be incidental, hair pull. It doesn't sit entirely comfortably to me that this should still be considered violent conduct and treated the same as a deliberate hair pull.

To me it makes no difference in terms of sanctioning. The intent to commit that specific act may not be there but so does the intent to hurt opponents in most SFPs. They are just footballing actions gone seriously wrong.

There reason it is classified as VC is that the referees (those who believe it is red) have nowhere else to put it. I think i said this before, I won't be surprised if IFAB make a new category red card for this or specifically add it to one of the existing categories so that it is not shoehorned into somthing that doesnt fit.

 

[JamesL]

To me it makes no difference in terms of sanctioning. The intent to commit that specific act may not be there but so does the intent to hurt opponents in most SFPs. They are just footballing actions gone seriously wrong.

There reason it is classified as VC is that the referees (those who believe it is red) have nowhere else to put it. I think i said this before, I won't be surprised if IFAB make a new category red card for this or specifically add it to one of the existing categories so that it is not shoehorned into somthing that doesnt fit.

It either fits in as VC with no challenge or serious if challenging. Pulling hair, deliberately at least, in my opinion is falls under brutality, specifically, a savage act.

 

[one]

It either fits in as VC with no challenge or serious if challenging. Pulling hair, deliberately at least, in my opinion is falls under brutality, specifically, a savage act.

I think if you see the incident in question you can see why there is an argument that it is neither savage nor brutal. But for me (and as it was for VAR and referee) it should still be a RC and the best place to fit it is under VC.

Before biting was included in the laws, it was always fit under VC. I admit that it was a lot better fit than hair pulling but now it has it's own category.

 

[socal lurker]

Sigh. I hate adding more categories. Not needed, and really won’t clarify anyway, the Law book. Ore and more looks like an American baseball rule book trying to ferret out every conceivable set of events—which works far better in an episodic game like baseball than a flow game like soccer. Well, al east it was a flow game . . .

 

[RustyRef]

You seem to be skipping the grey area (well not skipping it, but combining it). For me, there should be a difference between a deliberate pull of someone's hair (when a player intends to pull another by the hair) and a situation where a player as part of a challenge attempts to grab a part of the player but ultimately grabs their hair without that being the intended place of grabbing. In your world, that's still a deliberate hair pull. In my world, it isn't. It's a deliberate act, but an accidental, or maybe a better term would be incidental, hair pull. It doesn't sit entirely comfortably to me that this should still be considered violent conduct and treated the same as a deliberate hair pull.


Touché

Doesn't the fact he made two grabs at the hair sway you towards it being deliberate? I might give him the benefit of the doubt if it was just once, but can it be an accident twice in the space of a second? Possibly, but that would be incredibly bad luck.

 

[RefereeX]

Doesn't the fact he made two grabs at the hair sway you towards it being deliberate? I might give him the benefit of the doubt if it was just once, but can it be an accident twice in the space of a second? Possibly, but that would be incredibly bad luck.

I’m not specifically referring to this example, just generally talking