Originally Posted by
Ollie the Optimist
Reading the pundits comments defending the rice red card, it just shows how no one is going to stand up to the PGMOL and just let them continue ruining the game with incompetent refereeing.
Let’s take the argument that Rice should have been booked by the letter of law because he kicked the ball away. Well to start with, the ball was moving because Brighton player had already moved it forward so by letter of the law, the free kick would have had to be retaken because you can’t kick a moving ball. He also wasn’t taking the free kick in the right place as foul was further back as again defined by letter of the law. So the referee only applied one letter of the law because he actively made that choice.
Yet earlier in the game, he didn’t apply the letter of the law to Pedro when he booted the ball 40 yards away after running it out of play. By the letter of the law, there is no difference between that & Rice yet he applied two completely different standards of refereeing. Most accept it was common sense to not book Pedro but you cannot justify that now given the Rice incident.