Lisandro Martinez, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and why hair-pulling is a red-card offence

Lisandro Martinez, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and why hair-pulling is a red-card offence

It was, according to Manchester United head coach Michael Carrick, “one of the worst” refereeing decisions he had witnessed.

An aerial challenge with Leeds United forward Dominic Calvert-Lewin had led to Lisandro Martinez pulling the hair of his opponent in the centre circle, an action not spotted by referee Paul Tierney during the visitors’ 2-1 win at Old Trafford on Monday night.

Yet video assistant referee (VAR) John Brooks, who is scheduled to take on the same role in Sunday’s title decider between Manchester City and Arsenal, had seen it differently. A pitchside review was recommended and soon enough, Martinez was shown a straight red card by Tierney.

The Premier League Match Centre clarified it had been considered an act of “violent conduct” but Carrick — and others — had their doubts.

What is the history of punishing hair-pulling in the Premier League?

Cases are rare but not unique and owe much to a line drawn in the sand after Chelsea hosted Tottenham Hotspur in August 2022. A heated game ended 2-2 but it was Spurs defender Cristian Romero’s hair-pull on opponent Marc Cucurella that created a storm after going unpunished by both the referee, Anthony Taylor, and the VAR, Mike Dean.

“Since when can we pull hair on a football field?” then-Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel told reporters post-match. “It’s ridiculous.”

Dean eventually accepted his error. “I should have asked Taylor to visit his pitchside monitor to take a look for himself,” wrote Dean in his Daily Mail column, saying he had not personally deemed it violent conduct on review.

The subsequent shift has been clear in the age of VAR. Southampton’s Jack Stephens was sent off for pulling Cucurella’s hair when lining up for a set-piece during a 5-1 loss to Chelsea in December 2024, again with the official, this time Tony Harrington, not seeing the incident until being sent to the pitchside monitor.

Howard Webb, head of PGMO, explained the reasoning behind the red card during an episode of Mic’d Up, the in-house TV programme that reviews contentious refereeing decisions in the Premier League.

“It just crosses that line of acceptable behaviour on the field of play,” he said. “If you start pulling people’s hair, there’s absolutely no reason to do that. People don’t want to see that happening. And therefore players understand. In most circumstances, it will be seen as more than negligible contact when you start tugging hair, and you’re going to get a red card.”

If there were similarities between the offences committed by Romero and Stephens, Martinez’s dismissal has a greater liking with a red card shown to Michael Keane earlier this season. The Everton defender was adjudged to have tugged on the braided hair of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Tolu Arokodare during a 1-1 draw at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.

David Moyes, the Everton manager, called it a “ridiculous decision” given Keane had been challenging Arokodare for a header in the air but Webb, again, maintained the right decision had been reached to show a red card after a VAR review.

“For some years now, actions where players have pulled an opponent’s hair is deemed as violent conduct,” he said, speaking on Mic’d Up.

“It is in the guidance we give to clubs before the season starts, the book that the Premier League produces, that grabbing someone’s hair with force is deemed as violent conduct and a player will be sent off… if we see it again next week it will be the same outcome.”

Although hair-pulling is not expressly prohibited in the laws of the game, it has been considered enough to constitute violent conduct throughout Webb’s time in charge of Premier League refereeing, a spell that began in December 2022.

The guidelines were not always so clear.

Go back to 2016 (before VAR) and Manchester United midfielder Marouane Fellaini elbowed Robert Huth after the Leicester City defender clearly pulled on the Belgian’s hair. Louis van Gaal, the Manchester United manager, offered up his take before both Fellaini and Huth were given three-game bans by the Football Association in the following days. “It’s not in the books that someone has to grab by the hair and then pull it behind,” he told the BBC. “Only in sex masochism.”

It was then roles reversed for Fellaini two years later when he pulled Arsenal’s Matteo Guendouzi back by the hair. No retrospective punishment was forthcoming for a foul that appeared to meet the threshold of excessive force.

Have we seen hair-pulling punished in other competitions?

Well, yes and no. One of the most high-profile recent episodes came during the quarter-finals of the Women’s European Championship in 2025. Germany midfielder Kathrin Hendrich was caught yanking the ponytail of France captain Griedge Mbock by the VAR, with the officials then sending off Hendrich and awarding a penalty to compound the punishment.

Consistency, though, has not followed. A Women’s Champions League tie earlier this month was overshadowed after Arsenal’s Katie McCabe escaped a red card when pulling the hair of Chelsea’s Alyssa Thompson, who was breaking up field.

It brought a furious reaction from Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor. “When you are playing football and someone pulls your hair, I don’t know if you’ve been in that position, but it’s not nice at all,” she told reporters. “What is the VAR doing in these games?”

Another incident came in the Europa Conference League this season. Fiorentina and Italy forward Moise Kean was sent off in a 3-0 win over Ukrainian side Polessya Zhitomir in August when he reacted angrily by launching an elbow at an opposing defender who had pulled his hair and gone unpunished.

What action will be taken at this summer’s World Cup?

Recent history would suggest it will be much the same approach. FIFA’s officials certainly adopted the same stance in the Club World Cup final between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain last July, dismissing Joao Neves for tugging on the hair of, yes, you guessed it, Cucurella in the closing stages.

Experienced Australian official Alireza Faghani had missed the incident initially and was advised to oversee a pitchside review, which confirmed Neves’ indiscretion. A straight red card was shown, reducing PSG to 10 men with the game already lost at 3-0.

FIFA will outline their expectations to a recently confirmed roster of officials when meeting for a pre-tournament camp in Miami in early June but it is hard to foresee a change in the approach to the punishment of hair-pulling.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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