Last week, I received a thorough analysis of the red cards given in our state's high school games last year. Some things I noticed: Boys' soccer had the most ejections of any sport, with football a relatively close second. (Volleyball had zero. Softball had four.) Girls soccer was fifth, out of nine sports. The number of soccer ejections was down more than 10% from the previous year (2017). 4.3% of boys' games had a red card. 1.5% of girls games had a red card. 22% of boys' reds were in sub-varsity games, v. only 11% of girls' games. 12% of boys' reds were in their team's last game of the season. 20% of the girls ejections were in the last game. 95% of the boys' reds were to players. 88% of the girls' ejections were to players. Out of 5,350 games, there were a total of 10 coaches given red cards. Assuming two coaches per game, that's a rate of one every thousand games. The bigger the school, the more likely an ejection. About a quarter of the ejections were appealed. The appeal was granted for less than 10% of the reds. Editorial opinion: appeals are granted when the assignor agrees with the appeal. IMHO, some weak assignors think that granting appeals will make them popular with the schools. They are wrong. But there are valid reasons for some appeals to be granted, such as a referee who reports something like, "I sent him off for dissent." On the boys' side, 36% of the ejections were for second caution. 24% for violent conduct. On the girls' side, things were somewhat similar. 37% second caution, 20% violent conduct. Both kinds of DOGSO were 20% for girls but only 12% for boys. Girls had no reds for spitting or entering the field during a fight, unlike the boys.
Around here, soccer has been the sport with the most ejections for years. Every few years, I get a call from the state, or a hallway conversation at a state meeting: "What the heck is wrong with you soccer guys, that you have so many ejections?" I start by explaining that we play twice as many soccer games as football (18/season instead of 9/season). I then patiently explain that things that would get a 15 yard penalty in football can get a red card in soccer. That two fairly benign 10 yard holding flags in football could be a first and a second yellow, and then disqualification in soccer. When two boys start handbags at 5 paces, the result in football is offsetting fouls, also called "nothing," while in soccer, they each are half-way to getting tossed. That one general category of yellow cards was called, in the memory of referees I use on varsity games, "Ungentlemanly Conduct". That, in short, the rules set of soccer does what it can to maintain a level of sportsmanship that the state should be encouraging, not discouraging. Lather, rinse, repeat.
VHSL always gives us a breakdown, but here in the commonwealth, soccer is just ahead of basketball. Football was third, if I recall. To be honest, I've seen a lot more dumb ejections for soccer than I have for any other sport. Delaying the game, bone-headed decisions, godawful trash talk. I agree with the sentiment that soccer rules tie your hands when it comes to ejections, but the attitudes and reactions of players & coaches to refs is what get sets it apart from other sports. Kid curses you out in football? You think you've heard cursing? Oh man, wait till you tell his coach. Kid threw a ball at me during a basketball game? I thought his coach was going to throw him into the stands. Kid curses out the ref in soccer? "C'mon sir, that's soft! He was walking away!"
I was told we need to always use the proper terminology. In high school soccer, they aren't ejection; they are disqualifications!
I coached for a long time. I'm very glad that no ref ever had cause to come to me and say that one of my players had sworn at him/her. Not sure what I would have done to my player, but she would not have liked what resulted.
Dang I had forgotten hearing exactly this a few years ago. I had red carded a kid right in front of his bench, don't remember what he said, but whatever it was it was enough. Coach tried to convince me I should have given him the red instead of his player, I think because he claimed the player was reacting to something the coach had done or said. Don't remember what I said to the coach in reply either, but whatever it was it was enough.
NFHS soccer rules call them disqualifications (and I used that term in my post), but I'm not sure about other sports. In fact, 5 fouls in basketball and however many minutes (5?) of personal fouls in lacrosse might actually be an ejection (you're done for the day, but you don't have to sit the following day of competition) as opposed to a DQ where you do. Pure conjecture on my part, of course.
Our state allows reviews on disqualifications only in breaches of rule or misidentified players or individuals. Which I think is fine. I even gave the coach the minute in a game where an incident occurred that was missed by my crew. I told him that we can’t do anything today but if you feel strongly please report it and I will verify that we missed the incident and the state can act independently from us with my thanks.
In FL we have added the "blue card", which is for 2nd yellows and DOGSO reds. The team still plays down a player for the remainder of the match, but we don't have to report a disqualification.
All sports rule here is "no protests are allowed" We recently had a SNAFU around KFTPM in a state playoff where the referee crew decided that one team had taken their kicks out of order, and thus some previous made kick was a miss, and thus the team lost. There was no disagreement on the facts, the ref crew simply didn't understand the rule properly, made, uh, stuff, up, and screwed the pooch. High enough stakes that the state did step in and order KFTPM re-taken (can't remember if they started KFTPM over or if they picked up from the error).
Ouch! We don't allow protests of game results, no matter what, but what we've been talking about previously are protests of red cards. What I've found over the years is that the schools are okay with the player sitting out a game. They just don't want to pay the fine! There is also a point deduction in the All Sports Awards if your school is not "ejection free" for the year. A long time friend who is an athletic director will always call me when his school gets their first ejection in, inevitably, a boys' varsity soccer match. Quite a few years ago now, we had KFTPM in a playoff game. The referee, a USSF grade 5, of all things, screwed the pooch. It was tied after five kicks, so he had them do five more kicks. That's a problem when team A was ahead after the 6th kick but team B was ahead after the 10th kick. So team B went home thinking they had advanced to the next round. The referee crew's records were in agreement about where things had stood after each round, so it wasn't a problem sorting out who really won. I have annually threatened that any referee who makes a similar mistake will have to be the one to call the athletic director of the school that thought they had advanced but didn't. So far, no repeats.
I had a coach (and referee) about 3 years ago who argued with me that they got a second 5 kicks. Their GK got beat at #6 and she was in tears complaining that no one told her it was sudden death at that point. The coach came up as we were walking off. It was a predistrict match and the coaches decided they wanted to do kicks.
The spring after the event I mentioned above, I had a game go to kicks, and it was tied after 5 kicks. One coach (blue team) insisted that we do another 5 kicks and see if there was a winner then. In a weird twist, the opposing (white team) coach was the same guy that was the head coach of one of the teams from the screw-up the previous fall. I explained to the blue coach that he was wrong, we evaluated after each round, et c. et c. But I also got the host team's AD's phone so I could call the state and have HIM explain it to blue coach. Blue won it with the 6th or 7th kick. Of course, I asked him if he'd prefer that we continue to the 10th, just 'cause that's the kind of jerk I am.
I can see how it can be a bit confusing because they do have to use a different five kickers after the first five. That resets after ten. Pretty easy to get that mixed up with getting another five kicks.
We had a similar situation in New York a couple years ago. Teams were tied after 5 kicks so the referees gave them another full 5 kicks instead of going 1-for-1. One of the refs was a long time USSF official so he should have known better. The other was a high school only official and former soccer coach. He convinced everybody that you got two full kicks. We don't allow protests in New York so the wrong team may have gone on to the next round!
We had a similar situation with the misapplication of the rules for KFTM in a high school playoff game in KY probably 25 years ago. Wrong team won. They did not realize it until the next day. Went to court and got a judge to issue an injunction to stop the next game from playing. There was a picture in the local paper of the sheriff deputy handing the injunction to the referee before the next game started. The result of the game ended up being overturned and the correct team advanced after all.
I remain unconvinced that the "correct" team advances if you just go by the result of the 6th kick. Teams are going to approach the 6th kick differently if it is sudden death than if it is the first of 5. May be a different kicker. Is certainly a different level of pressure on both the kicker and the GK. IMHO it is a bit similar to the IFK into the goal when the R didn't signal--since the team was making decisions on erroneous information, the only fair thing is to do it over.
We had a misapplication of the rules on a U-14 State Cup game once. I don't remember all the details because it wasn't my game, but the ROC were ambiguous about whether there should be overtime or not. The referees at the field played the overtime since the game was tied at the end of regulation and the losing team protested. It turned out that there wasn't supposed to be overtime. Instead of just awarding a tie to both teams, the game was replayed in its entirety because the losing coach said he would have used different tactics if he had known there was no overtime. He ended up losing the replay.