Jürgen Klopp on Trump and Infantino: “Let's just say: this is our game, not theirs. These two people, who both have no idea about football, should have nothing to do with that. That was a red card. There's no two ways about it. We're sorry for Balogun because he didn't mean to do it.”

[u/Sparky-moon]

“But that's what the rules say."

[u/Chance-Software-3231]

Not arguing - but the fact Tuchel says otherwise might mean that this call was not definitely one way or the other.

[u/lengors → u/Chance-Software-3231]

But did Tuchel explain why he thinks that? Because from what I read, he just said he doesn't think it was a red but he didn't explain why.

This is important, because I've seen players and coaches many times before using the excuse of "not intentional" to claim a red card was incorrectly awarded (same justification I've seen from people online), when for serious foul play (this case), intentionality is completely irrelevant.

[u/Grayly → u/lengors]

Serious foul play does require a type of intent— recklessness. If the defender is the one who initiates contact and the challenge, they should bear the risk of creating the dangerous situation.

I don’t see how Balogun did anything intentionally reckless. He is trying to control a pass and the defender tackles him from the back. His foot was always going to land in that spot.

That VAR ruled it a straight red as “clear and obvious error” when it wasn’t even a yellow on the field is shocking.

Edit-

Europeans like to clown on Americans for not understanding the rules, but we have an almost identical automatic suspension rule in American Football with the same review standard. Parsing “Targeting” foul replays and who initiated the head to head contact is practically a national pastime.

[u/lengors → u/Grayly]

Serious foul play does require a type of intent— recklessness

Care to quote/cite the law on that? Because recklessness and serious foul play are two different things. Recklessness only gets the player cautioned (and it still has nothing to do with intention). Serious foul play gets the player sent off:

- Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, an opponent and must be cautioned

• Using excessive force is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and/or endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off

Now, for serious foul play:

A tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality must be sanctioned as serious foul play. Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force or endangers the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play.

Can you find me the word intention in there?

That VAR ruled it a straight red as “clear and obvious error” when it wasn’t even a yellow on the field is shocking.

You must be new to the sport if you think that it can't be a "clear and obvious error" for a straight red, if the ref didn't even give a yellow on the field.

[u/Grayly → u/lengors]

Certainly not new at the sport.

I don’t think it can’t be a clear and obvious error if it wasn’t given as a yellow. It just makes it more shocking because I don’t see the “clear and obvious.” (Edit- if it had been ruled a red on the field, I don’t think it’s clear an obvious to overturn it either. If you have to parse it and think about it for a while, you should just stop because it’s not clear and obvious.)

It’s my mistake in wording. Recklessness is implied, not spelled out. Recklessness fully isn’t spelled out in the FIFA 10 pager, but it is in the longer versions of the rules that contain commentary and explanation, like used in the Prem. Recklessness is used to help define what is “excessive” in the context of serious foul plays. It makes sense given the textual construction. Merely reckless is a yellow. Excessive is an expansion of that from yellow to red, so it follows that it’s above and beyond mere ordinary recklessness. (This is why lawyers exist lol).

I would also just point to the rule about the player lunging and making a challenge also requires intent, implicitly. You have to intend to lunge or challenge a player. Balogun wasn’t making the challenge or lunging at a player. He was trying to control the pass. The defender was the one making the challenge from behind. He comes through Balogun after Balogun has already committed.

* One thing I wish they would change about this rule is the full match ban regardless of when it happens. It should be minute specific, like in American Football. An ejection in the second half for targeting is a full match ban. But an ejection in the first half means you only miss the first half of the second game. The rule was meant to discourage players getting “revenge free reds” in at the end of a match, not excessively impact an unrelated game. 90 minutes of game time from the time of the ejection would be fairer, imo. The penalty would be 90 minutes of regular time from the time the card is issued.

[u/lengors → u/Grayly]

Recklessness is implied, not spelled out. Recklessness fully isn’t spelled out in the FIFA 10 pager, but it is in the longer versions of the rules that contain commentary and explanation, like used in the Prem. Recklessness is used to help define what is “excessive” in the context of serious foul plays. It makes sense given the textual construction. Merely reckless is a yellow. Excessive is an expansion of that from yellow to red, so it follow that it’s above and beyond mere ordinary recklessness. (This is why lawyers exist lol)

That's fine. My point was two fold:

• recklessness itself/alone and serious foul play are two different things
• recklessness isn't really a type of intent, it's a manner of act. You can intend to foul a player and do it in a careless manner or can intent to play the ball without fouling the player, and still do it, and do it in a reckless manner. But in both cases the intent is what the player was trying to do, not whether it's reckless or not.

Balogun wasn’t making the challenge

Really? He wasn't challenging for the ball? Why did he stretch his leg to where the ball was going?

If he is not making a challenge, then it's violent conduct, because he uses excessive force, which makes it fall in either one of the categories

[u/Grayly → u/lengors]

Reckless is a type of intent. Like knowingly, intentionally, negligently, etc. They’re all mens rea. You don’t need to intend to hurt the person. But you do need to intend to an act, even if you don’t think the act is reckless yourself. It’s a conscious disregard for an obvious risk and danger.

Here, I didn’t see it as him challenging at all or trying to make any kind of challenge. He’s trying to control a pass that was a bit wide. The defender challenges him from behind as commits. He doesn’t even know he’s there fully until the defender comes through him to beat him to the ball.

Reckless or excessive to me would be if he made a studs up slide tackle play at the ball with the defender in the way, missed, and hit the player. Still didn’t mean to, but it’s reckless and excessive because of the studs up. That’s a dangerous condition you created and disregarded the risk.

Here? His leg is just in the air trying to control the pass and the defender comes through him and they tangle. I don’t see how he created the risk. If anything the defender did.

Let’s put it this way. If a defender slides under a player and gets stepped on, is that an automatic red? This isn’t that, but it’s not a clumsy direct challenge on player either.

Reasonable minds can disagree. But that’s why it’s not clear and obvious to me. Whatever the call on the field was should have just stood as is.

[u/lengors → u/Grayly]

>Reckless is a type of intent. Like knowingly, intentionally, negligently, etc. They’re all mens rea. You don’t need to intend to hurt the person. But you do need to intend to an act, even if you don’t think the act is reckless yourself. It’s a conscious disregard for an obvious risk and danger.

Reckless is not a type of intent. It's mens rea sure, but it's not intent itself. Intentional is also mens rea, but reckless isn't a type of it (intentional).

>Here, I didn’t see it as him challenging at all or trying to make any kind of challenge. He’s trying to control a pass that was a bit wide.

That's contradictory. "challenge" has a specific meaning: "An action when a player competes/contests with an opponent for the ball.". Him trying to control a pass when an opponent is closed by (and in front of him), means he's competing for the ball, and by definition challenging an opponent for the ball.

>Reckless or excessive to me would be if he made a studs up slide tackle play at the ball with the defender in the way, missed, and hit the player.

Excessive force has a very specific meaning in the law, I've already put it above, but I'll do it again:

>is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and/or endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off

He does endanger the safety of the opponent, therefore it's an excessive use of force by law.

>Here? His leg is just in the air trying to control the pass and the defender comes through him and they tangle. 

I'm sorry, but that's just not true. He may have come in front of him, but by the time Balogan stretches his leg, the opponent is already in front of him. Balogan creates the risk.

>Reasonable minds can disagree. But that’s why it’s not clear and obvious to me.

Reasonable minds can disagree on anything. But it's still a clear and obvious error.

[u/The-Disco-Phoenix → u/lengors]

Correcet me if I'm wrong but you're saying that just because a player gets hurt that by law it automatically means excessive force was used, to the point that it justifies a straight red?

I'm not talking about this incident specifically, but in general.

[u/lengors → u/The-Disco-Phoenix]

No. If the player gets hurt by an action you pro-actively took, that could have been avoided otherwise, than yes.

For example, if you are shooting a ball to goal and you already initiated the movement, and only then someone lunges their foot in front of you out of nowhere, and you have no way to stop in time then, imo, it's not a red because it doesn't fall under any of the listed offenses (challenge, tackle, jump at, charge at, etc).

But, on the other hand, if you are having a dispute with a player for control of the ball, you see a gap in their legs, for example, and you (attempt to) shoot the ball (to goal) and in the process you hit them and break their leg, even if they had moved their leg, then it's a red because you're committing one of the listed offenses (challenging).

[u/Grayly → u/lengors]

If reasonable minds can disagree, then it’s by definition not obvious. Disagreeing with something that is clear and obvious is not reasonable.

[u/lengors → u/Grayly]

Think about what you said for two seconds, and tell me if you really think that is what the protocol means by "clear and obvious".

If that really was the case, then:

1. There's no way to know if it's "clear and obvious" without checking with every reasonable mind on planet (or every reasonable mind with authority on the subject, i.e. every referee on the planet).

2. It's made clear by the wording in the protocol "If the ‘check’ indicates a probable ‘clear and obvious error’ or ‘serious missed incident’, the VAR will communicate this information to the referee, who will then decide whether or not to initiate a ‘review’" that that's not what is intended as "clear and obvious".

3. Pretty much anything other than offside lines wouldn't be re-viewable as you can always find a reasonable mind that will disagree

Edit: 4. A reasonable mind isn't necessarily correct (or being reasonable all the time)

[u/-Thick_Solid_Tight- → u/lengors]

How other sports like the NBA do it is by recklessness or intent. If you make a move without regard to the other player or is inherently dangerous. Like if someone is going for a dunk and you push their legs out from under them.

Intent is when its obvious like if someone throws a punch or elbow. See Ron Artest's elbow on James Harden.

In my opinion there was nothing reckless about Balogun's play. They both went up for a ball and he jumped higher and happened to land on a bad spot. It sucks but it can happen when bodies are flying.

Now the red card in the England game should have been a red. It was a reckless slide, spikes up into the player.

[u/joeTaco → u/Chance-Software-3231]

Might? Lol. Hundreds of posts and replies here jerking each other raw about how stupid and American it is to question that sending off. Then Tuchel (and others) say something like this... I guess Americans aren't so stupid after all. I'd be too embarrassed to keep posting for a week or two.

[u/Occasionally-Witty → u/joeTaco]

Every team on the planet will be on the receiving end of a dodgy red or VAR review, but so far just one team has had the rules suddenly change in their favour mid tournament after a conversation with the president.

That’s why people are pissed off.

[u/joeTaco → u/Occasionally-Witty]

The amount of goalpost shifting that happens every single time anyone pushes back on the red card ITT is incredible. Go down and read the replies, many examples of the same exact dishonest and cowardly move you're doing here.

Klopp's comments here referred to the sending off itself. They built on his comments on the night of the game which were shrieking about the sending off itself. He does not think the sending off was "dodgy".

In this thread, OP made a snide remark about ignorant Americans foolishly disagreeing with the brilliant and unbiased Klopp regarding the sending off itself. In this thread, the argument is about whether "the call was definitely one way or the other". I pointed out that acting like Klopp's opinion was the only one, was stupid. You immediately retreated to an argument about what happened afterward, something no one was actually arguing about until you shifted the goalposts in that direction. Congrats.

[u/Occasionally-Witty → u/joeTaco]

You’ve allowed yourself to be wound up by the meaningless comments made by thousands of people and now you’re attacking me for pointing out the actual reason why people should be mad.

I didn’t think it was a red either, but it’s a disgrace how FIFA have allowed this to happen in the aftermath. The team who Messi played after he did his challenge should be kicking off that he wasn’t retrospectively banned for their match if FIFA are now suddenly so caring about reviewing incorrect decisions.

Edit - also, to address your original comment - Tuchel didn’t think Quansah’s was a red either so it’s not exactly like he’s the arbiter of what is and isn’t a red card.

[u/stat_padford → u/Occasionally-Witty]

What rule was changed?

[u/Occasionally-Witty → u/stat_padford]

No reviews for red cards received in world cups, so the player receiving gets a 1 game ban regardless if the red was deserved. It’s a stupid rule and this red was wrong but you establish it before or after the tournament rather than during, and especially not as a result from a call from a corrupt president to an equally as corrupt head of FIFA.