Question Number: 21078

League Specific 4/2/2009

RE: High School Under 16

Darien Hudson of Fayetteville, North Carolina United States asks...

I recieved a 'soft' red card and I understood the first yellow was for language but I'm not quite sure about the second. I got a yellow for elbowing when the other girl was on the ground a few feet behind me and it was from a player of her team who tripped her is it really supposed to be a call on me because i was the only player from my school near her?

Answer provided by Referee Michelle Maloney

Since we have no idea what the referee team saw that caused them to issue you the second yellow card, most likely for unsporting behavior, it is impossible to give you any kind of a definitive answer.

Perhaps your coach could help you here by discovering the reason for the second caution. S/he should have access to the referee reports that are filed for each game, and if there are further questions, I would direct them to the HS referee assignor. They can visit with the referee and return an answer to you.

Answer provided by Referee Chuck Fleischer

As referee I will tell the player what she is being cautioned for! Then come the formalities of taking names and writing then showing of the card is last. Most referees have fallen by the wayside here, they just grab a handful of plastic and wave it about, who cares if the player is told -- they know exactly what they did anyway. Well this doesn't work in all cases. Both high school and FIFA expect the referee to caution and show the yellow card unless there is a huge fire to extinguish then card first and talking second.

Suffice to say you were cautioned and then received a subsequent caution leading to you're disqualification. The first caution was a way of saying calm down -- in the referee's eyes you didn't calm down enough. Is there something here we need to learn from???

Regards,

The following questions were asked as a follow up to the above question...

See Question: 21093