One of the most talked-about incidents during AC Milan’s win over Empoli yesterday is the red card shown to Fikayo Tomori, which threatened to derail the entire game.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport recall, Tomori received a second yellow card and therefore he was sent off, for a foul on a player in a suspected offside position. What happened? Let’s review the incident in full.
Empoli launched a counter-attack and the Milan loanee Lorenzo Colombo was found in a suspected offside position. Below is the image at the moment of Gyasi’s pass.
Referee Luca Pairetto and the linesman let the game play on, as often happens in the VAR era, knowing that if Colombo had gone on to score the offside would have been checked by the cameras.
However, Tomori slid in on Colombo and Pairetto booked him, the right decision for the foul itself as he did not get anywhere near the ball and brought a man down on the break. Hence, the red was shown.
Tomori protested a lot on the pitch, calling for the intervention of the VAR for offside, with the consequent cancellation of his second yellow. However, the rules do not allow a yellow card to be cancelled.
The VAR team can remove a straight red card by requesting an on-field review, but not a yellow. Even if it was born from an action tainted by offside? Yes, this detail does not impact things.
Tough break but thems the rules and probably won’t be changed for a while. I guess it comes to a judgment call if the defenders are very confident it’s offside, do what you can but don’t risk a card.
Very very difficult for a player to make that decision in the heat of the moment, in reality the rules should allow for a yellow to be rescinded in this scenario, unless it’s dangerous conduct.
Granted the refs followed the VAR rules here, but then they broke the VAR rules when they give a yellow to Gimenez after a VAR review, which is against the rules (hence why they said they couldn’t even give Cacace a yellow for his challenge on Walker). Clearly they disregard (or conveniently forget) the VAR rules to suit their own agenda.
It’s not against the rules to give a yellow for something they see on a review, it is not in their rules to review a foul unless checking for a possible red card.
And a yellow card can be rescinded in certain circumstances too, such as the one the defender got when Leah’s penalty shout was overturned against Zagreb (that IMO was a wrong call).
Removing a yellow for a slightly dangerous foul seems a weird precedent anyway, even if the player is offside it shouldn’t really excuse a lunge.
It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances this one, but it sort of makes sense. VAR is bad enough already, without introducing more checks – I’d rather have fewer than more.
The linesman should raise a flag for once for a change when it is so obvious , since introducing a var technology they are useless,they do nothing and let the var work for them. 5 yo kid can be the linesman like that. But its clear why he didnt raise a flag,pairetto was corupted for sure,and the linesman was his accomplice including VAR team
Why can’t the linesman raise the flag for offside after the foul?
He probably was confident that it was offside. It’s borderline. Walker is either playing him onside or he is off by centimetres
Once again the AIA shows its incompetence and unwillingness to hold its members accountable for blatant errors. The leadership of the FIGC and by extension the AIA is truly a farce of the highest caliber
are we really going to pretend like this EXACT scenario did not happen against Roma last game? they had a yellow card rescinded because the var intervened to call an offside, granted it was a cup game but its the Italian Cup so it should follow the same rules its not like it was a european competition, lets not pretend like there isnt a clear and obvious pattern of referees making calls against Milan that they would NEVER call if it was FOR Milan, the past 3-4 seasons alone where full of refereeing decisions that would bring any refereeing organization to its knees in a court.
Not to defend Fonsceca but he was the only one brave enough to say it out loud, Seria A refs are ridiculous and its as obvious as daylight that there is some betting business going on
Biggest problem was jump on Walker leg.
They explained like Walker leg was not too high, so potential injury would not going to happen when Empoli man clearly lost any possibility to catch the ball.
I think there was so many mistakes on purpose or by accident against Milan, that some kid of form complainant should be sent from Milan stance….
Agree that the Walker one is strange. As soon as I saw a reply of the foal I immediately assumed VAR red was coming.
The commentator on my coverage agreed when it was replayed for a second time.
foul*
If the yellow is a 2nd yellow and subsequently sending off then they should allow the rule to include these
The rules needs a small tweak is all. It would be daft to start intervening on every yellow card, but this is different as the foul that lead to the second yellow technically never happened. The rule simply needs to say that the first action supersedes ALL subsequent actions before the whistle.
Job done.
The rule needs to be tweaked to say that ANY expulsion is reviewable if there is a preceding play that would result in the nullification of the expulsion. So VAR can’t intervene on a yellow card play, but it can for red cards. Doesn’t a second yellow mean a red? So if a second yellow converts to a red then the red card review rule should apply. Then there would be an offside, which would make the play dead at the offside, and all subsequent punishments handed down after, except for dissent (which can be given at any time) and violent conduct (like a player punching another player), are canceled regardless of card color.
So, if you are a defender and you know a player is offside, but the flag hasn’t gone up, should you put in a hard tackle as a ‘free hit’ (not violent enough for a red, but just pull them down) on the opposition player?
I’m playing Devil’s Advocate a bit there – I wonder what would have happened if the linesman had raised his flag, no idea what the rule would have been.
No, nothing about how anybody acted would change. All that would change would be the review of the second yellow, because it’s an expulsion. If Tomori didn’t already have a yellow, he would get a yellow for violent conduct, and it would be non-reviewable and thus the offside call would be irrelevant to the awarding of that first yellow.
Tomori still no apology, he doesnt care does he
trying to hide behind the offside
Soon, we no longer need a referee and lines man. Everything control by technology.
The thing here is it was not offside. Walker is enabling the player
TBH, I do not care much about whether it was offside or not. For an experienced defender like Fik, a Scudetto winner at that, that tackle was idiotic. He had already used his great pace to recover. Colombo was going nowhere. Stay with him until the defense recovers or Colombo makes his next move. There was no need to make that tackle. So unnecessary.
If it was Bartesaghi, I’d chalk it up to inexperience/naivety but not him.
Agree 💯 %