I am sure many of you saw over the weekend Slovakian referee Lubos Michel show a red card for a second offence to Russian defender Denis Kolodin in the quarter-final match with Netherlands only to withdraw it after speaking with his assistant referee. UEFA have stated that the referee had been convinced by his assistant that Kolodin's tackle did not warrant a caution.

This demonstrates an example of cooperation between referees and their assistants; because they had the conversation and the decision was reconsidered. Regardless of all the modern technology (beep flags and earpiece communication) the face to face conversation was the major selling point in getting this decision correct.

I know that many commentators have speculated that the second caution had been overturned due to the ball being out of play when the challenge was made.   For the avoidance of doubt you are reminded that the status of the ball has no bearing on the sanctioning of a player in this regard. If the assistant referee had failed to convince the referee that the challenge was not cautionable, then regardless of whether the ball was out of play the referee must apply the appropriate disciplinary sanction and in this case dismiss the player from the field. Of course the restart would revert to the where the ball was out of play.

Regards

Joe Guest, CSA Director of Referees