Unsporting behaviour

Many, if not most yellow cards are shown for what is now called ‘unsporting behaviour’. The old phrase ‘ungentlemanly conduct’ did have a quaint ring to it which helped to mystify players. It seemed to them, as the new expression does, to cover a multitude of sins. And they are right. It does.

Referees, eternally optimistic (they have to be), believe that players at least start with a notion of what is fair and what is unfair, what is sporting and what is not. Nevertheless, particularly in a fast-moving contact sport, things will be done which ought not to be done. And the sanction is usually straightforward e.g. a free kick. That is the punishment for the ‘ordinary’ misdemeanour.

Sometimes it goes too far

But there are occasions when the referee must do more because the player has done more. A player tackles unfairly in the run of the game - free kick; he makes a heavy, pre-meditated tackle - free kick and caution. The player is cautioned because he has gone into the area of the ‘unsporting’.

Not in the spirit of the game

‘Unsporting behaviour’ also includes other offences which are against the spirit of the game but don’t easily fit into the usual categories. It is unsporting, for example, to use a trick to circumvent the Law when taking a free kick or deliberately to put an opponent off by shouting or gesticulating. Some would call it gamesmanship but it’s unsporting and it’s cautionable.

The caution serves as a warning to everyone that certain forms of behaviour are unacceptable. More precisely it is a warning to the player as to his future conduct, in the hope of deterring him from a second cautionable offence. Referees do like to have 22 players on the field at full time, whatever the fans may sometimes think!

Brian Palmer

© B. Palmer 1998

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