Leny Yoro’s red card in Madrid has a rare thing going for it: a former striker and a former referee agreeing on the same broadcast. On Amazon Prime, Alan Shearer said it was not even a foul. Mark Clattenburg, the former Premier League referee, called it “extremely soft” and said it should never have been sent to the monitor. They agree on the outcome. They are making different arguments, and only one of them stands up against the Laws of the Game.
What happened
In the 74th minute, Yoro tangled with Jonathan David just inside United’s half. Play went on, Ademola Lookman forced a save from Senne Lammens, and the referee, Glenn Nyberg, brought the play back to give United a free-kick because David had handled the ball on the ground. Then VAR intervened. Nyberg went to the monitor, judged that Yoro was the last man and had made enough contact to deny David a run on goal, and showed a straight red. The sequence is laid out in the Mirror’s report. Atletico won 2-0, and Sky Sports called the sending-off controversial.
Shearer: no foul
Shearer’s view was the simplest. “It wasn’t [a foul] for me. He goes down too easy. It’s not a foul.”
That is a judgement on contact, and it is the weaker of the two arguments. Clattenburg, sitting next to him, conceded the key fact: “There is an arm across the shoulder.” Holding and pushing are both fouls under Law 12, and an arm across the shoulder of an attacker trying to run through is hard to describe as anything else. Shearer may think David made the most of it. That does not make it no foul.
Clattenburg: not clear and obvious
Clattenburg’s argument was more careful, and more interesting. “That’s extremely soft. He puts his arm across, and the two players are fighting for position,” he said. “This has to be a clear and obvious error, and I don’t believe it is a clear and obvious error from the referee.” He finished: “There is an arm across the shoulder, but that contact is very slight. I don’t believe, in my opinion, that it’s a red card. But we know from this review what is going to happen.”
His point is not really about the foul. It is about the threshold for VAR. The on-field referee saw the incident and did not give a red. The video assistant is supposed to step in only for a clear and obvious error, and two players “fighting for position” with slight contact is, almost by definition, not clear and obvious.
What the Law says
Law 12 of the IFAB Laws of the Game sets out four things a referee must consider before sending a player off for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity: the distance between the offence and the goal, the general direction of the play, the likelihood of keeping or gaining control of the ball, and the location and number of defenders and attackers. Outside the penalty area, there is no downgrade to a yellow for an attempt to play the ball: if it is a foul that denies an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, it is a red.
Run Yoro’s challenge through that test. Direction and defenders favour the red: Clattenburg himself said it was “central”, and Nyberg judged Yoro to be the last man. Distance does not: the contact came just inside United’s half, a long way from goal. Control is the real question. David was in a contest for position, ended up handling the ball on the ground, and it was Lookman, not David, who got the shot away. That suggests the ball was far from certain to be his.
Our verdict
Shearer is wrong that it was not a foul. Clattenburg is right that it should not have been a red, and right about why. Two of the four DOGSO tests, distance and control, are genuinely open, and when half the criteria are arguable, the on-field call cannot be a clear and obvious error. The VAR should have left Nyberg’s decision alone. The fault in Madrid was not Yoro’s arm. It was a review process that turned a judgement call into a certainty.
United’s night got worse after the whistle. Read our take on Lisandro Martinez’s outburst and the pundit verdicts.
Sources: Mirror, Sky Sports, IFAB.
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