Hoping for the judges: why the decision to abandon the cancellation of erroneous yellow cards in the RPL raises questions

Less than two weeks are left before the start of the Russian Football Championship season-2021/22. In preparation for the start of the championship, the disciplinary regulations have undergone changes. In particular, the bureau of the executive committee of the RFU decided to remove one of the points, which caused a lot of controversy during the last season. According to him, the Control and Disciplinary Committee was able to cancel yellow cards if necessary if the referee's decision was incorrect and led to the player's disqualification for the next match.

So, on the eve of the 2020/21 season, a clause was added to article 52 of the disciplinary regulations "Special jurisdiction of the control-disciplinary committee of the RFU", expanding the powers of the FTC. Previously, he already had the opportunity to correct the errors of the judges in a number of episodes. For example, if the referee made a mistake and punished not the violator of the rules, but another player of the given team, or did not remove the player for the second yellow card. But subsequently, the authority's ability to influence the game was expanded, and one of the RPL clubs was the initiator of this.

“Recently we have faced a number of situations when, due to erroneous decisions of the referees, the players of Krasnodar were unreasonably disqualified for the next match. We are talking about wrongly presented yellow cards, which do not entail removal in the match, but entail disqualification for the next match. According to the general rule laid down in the disciplinary regulations, only the erroneous use of a yellow card in place of another player is subject to appeal. We believe that such a rule is unfair; mistakenly issued warnings, which lead to automatic disqualification, should also be appealed, ”insisted Krasnodar CEO Vladimir Khashig in June 2019.

It is worth noting that at that time the southerners had many complaints about the work of arbitrators, in connection with which they not only proposed to finalize the disciplinary rules, but also acted as one of the main supporters of the implementation of the VAR system. Particular disagreement was caused by the appointment of a penalty kick to the gates of Krasnodar in the match of the 20th round of the RPL against Lokomotiv in March 2019, which also entailed the removal of the defensive player Charles Kaboret. At the same time, the most discussed incident occurred a little earlier - in April 2018. In a meeting with Arsenal, the team's top scorer Fyodor Smolov received a yellow card for a simulation and was forced to miss a key game with CSKA in the 27th round. Subsequently, the army team won and, according to the results of the championship, won silver medals, and Murad Musaev's wards remained fourth.

As you can see, the RFU did not immediately heed the requests of Krasnodar and only in 2020 decided to correct the regulations. In August, a clause was added to it, according to which the FTC has the right to cancel “the erroneous application of a warning to a player in the Russian Championship among the teams of RFPL clubs, which entails automatic disqualification for the next match of this competition after receiving this warning, as specified in paragraph 1 of Part 4 of Article 15 ".

During the last season, clubs have repeatedly contacted the FTC RFU with a request to consider the possibility of canceling the yellow card. And many of them were even satisfied. So, CSKA defender Mario Fernandez escaped disqualification and was able to take part in the 22nd round match with Arsenal, and Rostov forward Dmitry Poloz - in the 27th round match with Tambov. But it also happened that the committee did not share the position of the teams. And Spartak Moscow felt itself more often than others.

One of the loudest episodes occurred on the eve of the derby with Dynamo in the second round.

Then the FTC RFU canceled the yellow card of the midfielder of the blue and white Daniil Fomin, but at the same time upheld the warning of the defender of the red and white Samuel Zhigot.

As a result, "Spartak" coped without him (2: 1), but the committee's verdict then caused controversy among many.

The leadership of the ten-time champions of the country was so dissatisfied with this outcome that they even turned to the head of the Russian Football Union, Alexander Dyukov.

“We believe that such decisions, which can have a serious impact on the upcoming match, should be explained in as much detail as possible in order to avoid misinterpretations and damage to the reputation of Russian football.

We count on your openness and objectivity of the RFU in assessing these episodes, ”the message said.

It is noteworthy that Spartak's troubles did not end there. Subsequently, the club twice failed to achieve the cancellation of the punishment for its players. So, in the match from the 27th round with CSKA, goalkeeper Alexander Maksimenko and defender Ayrton received their fourth warnings, which cost them their participation in the meeting with Arsenal. True, it did not prevent to win this again (2: 1).

As it is easy to see, the decisions of the FTC on this issue often caused serious controversy and indignation from the clubs. Moreover, they were not satisfied not only with the verdicts themselves, but also with the form in which they were presented. The committee limited itself to dry statements, instead of explaining in detail and intelligibly why, in this situation, the "mustard plaster" was canceled, and in another it was not. Even in the case of Gigot, there was no full-fledged answer. In the communications service of the RFU, they limited themselves to explaining exactly how things are, but no more.

“When making a decision to cancel yellow cards, the FTC RFU is guided by the materials of the expert and judicial commission. The ESC consists of highly qualified experts with extensive experience in refereeing, including foreign arbitrators. The results of today's meeting of the commission were promptly transferred to the FTC. On their basis, the committee decided to cancel Fomin's warning, and also confirmed the referee's decision to issue a warning to Gigot, ”the RFU said.

A detailed explanation was obtained only from the representative of the Expert and Judicial Commission in the person of Nikolai Levnikov, who thoroughly analyzed both the incident with Zhigot and with Fomin. According to him, the ESC analyzed the episode from the point of view of the rudeness of the foul, since it was for her, according to the protocol, that a yellow card was shown. At the same time, the commission had a discussion about whether the episode could be qualified as a failure of a promising attack.

Thus, over the past season, this point of the regulations has rather become an object of discussion than a help for RPL clubs. On the one hand, the RFU acted logically. In an attempt to reduce the degree of tension and protect the league from the emergence of conflict situations, it was decided to abandon this initiative. And over a short distance, it can actually work. The lack of this option for the league teams will reduce their number of appeals to the FTC and regrets by the fact that their application was not granted.

On the other hand, a decrease in control over the work of arbitrators may well lead to a repetition of the incidents with Smolov. Then, few doubted the fact that the referee Artyom Chistyakov made a gross mistake, but there was no way to influence this. As a result, the striker's disqualification remained in effect, Krasnodar was left without the most important performer in one of the decisive games of the season and lost. And it cost the team not only medals, but also money. In theory, Musaev's wards could well take second place, get a direct ticket to the group stage of the Champions League and fulfill the dream of their owner Sergei Galitsky.

At the moment, it can be assumed that the exclusion of this clause from the rules is intended to stimulate the arbitrators themselves. In fact, all responsibility rests solely on their shoulders, and in the event of an obvious mistake, it will be them who will be presented with claims. In theory, this should improve their concentration and force them to make even more balanced decisions on the field. Otherwise, the likelihood of following the path of a number of colleagues increases. So, over the past year, Mikhail Vilkov and Stanislav Vasiliev were suspended from work for life, and Sergei Lapochkin and Vasily Kazartsev were subjected to sanctions. But did it help the teams affected by their decisions?

In addition, the powers of the FTC and its ability to have a positive impact on the purity of refereeing in the RPL are again reduced to a minimum. In this case, in his jurisdiction there is only decision-making in the most commonplace situations - showing the card to the wrong player and not removing the player after receiving a second warning, as well as analyzing various disciplinary violations and imposing fines for the behavior of fans and participants in the meeting.

In this regard, it can be assumed that the abandonment of this initiative, a year after the introduction, was a little hasty. In general, it still benefited the league, although it sometimes became the subject of controversy. However, in modern football this is inevitable and the reason for this is not the toxicity of the clubs themselves, but the rules, many of which are still not unambiguously interpreted. This leads to the fact that two referees can make diametrically opposed verdicts in one episode, thereby influencing the outcome of both a single match and the outcome of the season.

And in such cases, a body that could understand in detail a specific moment and make an objective and balanced decision would be extremely useful. And the FTC, in cooperation with the ESCO, could well continue to carry out this function. Of course, it would be worth thinking about a detailed explanation of the mechanisms for issuing such verdicts and the publication of the motivation part.