Cards

Mel, an adult-pro fan, asks:

Your question is not easily answered but we will try to clear up some issues.  The cards (yellow and red) are not the issue, they are a form of communication.  If a player does something that comes under the category of misconduct, the showing of the card (yellow or red) is merely the public statement that a misconduct has occurred.  Red cards are rarely the issue because, if a player commits a red card offense, the player has to leave the field and the card itself is merely the official statement.  Yellow cards are a different matter because in the large majority of cases, the player’s action is dealt with and, with few exceptions (mostly limited to the commission of a second yellow card offense in the same game), the failure to show the card does not by itself change the fact that an offense has been committed.

Keep in mind that the use of cards in soccer is actually a fairly modern event – they were created by Ken Aston (a British referee) and were first used in 1970.  They were almost immediately accepted as a means to “announce” that an offense had occurred which was serious (yellow) but the player is not sent off the field or was serious enough to warrant the removal of a player from the field for the remainder of the game (red).  In other words, they were a signal used to warn (yellow) or remove (red) a player for serious misconduct.  Aimed initially at a player who had committed an offense, it additionally became a public statement to all the players plus their teammates on the bench and their coaches and persons attending the game.  Ultimately, the use of these cards was incorporated into the Laws of the Game (followed, in the US, by high school and colleges/universities).  Their use was for publicly advising everyone that a player had been warned (yellow) or kicked off the field (red).  Not too long ago, the use of these cards was extended to a team’s coaches!

The point of all this is that the cards themselves don’t do anything but announce to a player (and everyone else) that he/she has been warned (yellow) or is being permanently sent off the field for misconduct (red).  The point, however, is that the real issue is not the cards but what they have announced.  Failing to publicly announce the relevant behavior doesn’t change the fact that the behavior has been committed.  If a player has committed an offense that would otherwise have warranted a yellow card, doesn’t change the fact that the offense has been committed.  This is one of the reasons that red cards are very rarely forgotten to be shown because they specifically involve a player being sent from the field for the rest of the game with no replacement.  Most problems with cards involve the failure to display a yellow card because a player who has committed a yellow card offense has still committed the offense – the problems arise when the player, who was whistled for a cautionable offense, may not realize that the offense was, indeed, cautionable and thus a warning that, if repeated during the same game, would lead to dismissal from the field.  Unfortunately, very often the failure to show the signal for a caution may result in the referee forgetting about the first misconduct which could then lead to the failure to remove the player from the game if the previously uncautioned player commits a second cautionable offense.

So, coming back to your specific question, the failure to show a yellow card (forgetting to show a red card still results in the player being sent from the field) is serious but usually not fatal.  One of the jobs of both assistant referees is, as quickly as possible, to remind the referee to show the appropriate card before play restarts.  The failure to show a red card is rare and usually “fixes” itself but failing to show a card (or failing to record the giving of a card) can lead to problems.  Unfortunately, the problems fall on the referee.  Remember, soccer existed and was played for more than a hundred years without the display of any cards – we survived – but the card system made the referee’s job (and that of the players) easier.  The major problem for a referee is not whether he/she forgot to show the card for the first cautionable offense but whether he/she forgot the offense in the first place!