Will be interesting to see what most make of this on here and what the rules are exactly in this regard. Seems ridiculously harsh to me to give a straight red as he quite clearly is only trying to talk to the referee. Yeah, shouldn't use his hands to stop him but the referee is running across and he does that instinctively and then stops immediately. Isn't even meant to be aggressive or sustained. Even the opposition player just interviewed called it a bizarre decision.
Particularly given the unfortunate frequency of referee assaults in soccer, I have no problem with it. In fact, I'd do the same thing. There are some things you just don't do; grabbing the referee is one of them. Other sports even have this codified—the rules of baseball, for instance, specify that any player making deliberate contact with an umpire is immediately removed from the game. Basketball rules prescribe a unsportsmanlike technical foul for physically contacting an official, for which just one is sufficient to eject a player (and two makes it mandatory). I don't really care how bizarre a decision any player thinks it is. You touch me on purpose, you're gone.
As long as he rooted around in that pocket - maybe he was looking for the yellow but, not finding it, settled for the red. Just kidding - hands on the ref, in these troubled times, are hands on the ref. Won't do.
This video is interesting. He shows Alex how he was apparently pushed by pushing him similarly at the end of the half (or game ?) but in the actual incident i don't see a push.
Nothing pains me more than watching a referee fumble around in his top pocket for a red card. Just keep it in your side pocket so you can whip it out instead of looking like a fool.
Not ridiculous at all -- pretty much a golden rule: keep your hands the #$%#$ off the referee. If he "instinctively" shoves the ref, he has no business playing the game.
Tradition and instruction warrants a send off here. Years and years ago there were several videos shown at RTS (or whatever it was called then) and they showed many examples of what USSF considered unacceptable contact with referees. This easily fell into the send off variety and even some others that appeared very soft. Examples included a player trying to spin the referee around by his shoulder to look at a replay on the Jumbo-TRON and another of the player pushing the referees hands down. Contact with the referee is kind of like contact above the shoulders -- it just shouldn't happen, with any degree of force. Of course if you know the players well you might be able to get away without the send off, but I would present that as a dangerous, high-grade surface of loose footing as we don't want to see that standard for the next ref.
Seriously, only two things go in my red card pocket: the red card and my coin. When you need the red you generally need it in a hurry.
All I could think was, what the hell is in there that it's so hard to get to? I have the red and yellow in my game wallet, a yellow in Front right and red in left back. I was taught long ago to have a second pair for the quick use. In fact, I haven't carded from the wallet ever since I started the practice.
Lee Mason (I think it was him) just seriously struggled with the same thing today in BPL match when he had a SFP. I can't stand refs keeping their cards in their upper pockets. When you need to get them out you need to be able to get them out quickly.
From the first video, I thought this was deep in the AR's quadrant and I was wondering what the ref was doing down there. This video shows a full different angles. From the second vantage point, I think you can see the shoving action that the referee then mimicked afterward.
I really don't see any shoving action. He tries to stop referee from going across and referee moves back himself as soon as he is touched almost shocked. Actually, having seen this incident i was watching a replay of Liverpool vs Everton and in that game Michael Olliver gave a decision in the box and he was running backwards. Steven Pienaar a everton player coming across similarly stopped him using his hands. He turned around and moved on after talking to him. The act from Thiago Silva is unjustified but i thought a Red was a overreaction. I know people said above these are troubled times and i can understand that, but when was the last time a referee was assaulted in a major league ? Guess, the decision depends on the referee and your relationship with him as i have seen even Howard Webb being contacted like this in the past.
The red card was justified. It is not about the degree of force used but more about the physical act itself. The threshold for physical contact with the referee is very low, don't touch the referee. In this case, rather than a shove or a push it looks like he actually grabs the front of the referee's shirt. Watch the very end of the video in post #13 at about 55 seconds.