What Happens if a Player Refuses to Get Out of Field After Being Red Carded

A player is shown a red card when he performs a serious football offence like a misconduct or willingful obstruction of a goal of the opponent team. Once a player is shown a red card, he is expected to leave the pitch for the rest of the remaining time of the game. But for the instances where the player refuses to get out of pitch after being shown a red card, what would happen?







According to FIFA law 5, powers of referees, if a red carded player refuses to leave the pitch as instructed by the referee, the referee will go to the player coach and inform him/her that its his/her responsibility to get the player out so that the game can continue. What if the player still fails to leave the pitch?

Should the player continue to refuse to leave the pitch, the referee stops the match. The match becomes abandoned and the referee calls the assistant referee and the game is over.



The referee then reports the scenario to FIFA or governing organization and gives them his/her decision to abandon the game. FIFA or the governing organization will determine the final outcome of the game. The player usually faces bans and sanctions for such misconduct. However, this rarely happens in football.

In that case, if such player refuses to leave the pitch, his captain will be asked to talk to him and if that did not work out, his manager has the right to remove him and if that persists, the referee will have to stop the game while security officers will play their part.

Looking back at history, a player in the Scottish League, Cooper received a red card and refused to leave the pitch which resulted in the referee giving him another 5 red cards. He was later fined the sum of £150 and was also banned by the Scottish football league for 2 years