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#Post#: 110553--------------------------------------------------
Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: Lanyardhater
Date: August 19, 2026, 3:49 am
---------------------------------------------------------
(This continues the debate which started under the
“Socks” heading.)
I dislike cynical play even more than foul play if I’m
honest, because the latter is usually accidental, but the former
never is.
Confusion about when/where to caution for pull-backs, rugby
holding etc. is yet another thing that arises from the unwise
rewriting of the Laws to include too much detail. Even so, the
rewritten Law 12 does say “interferes with” as well
as just “stops” a promising attack. Thus it does
allow for a player to be cautioned after an advantage has been
played.
But the present discussion is about pulling back an opponent in
other situations. What I would say is that the Law only lists
offences for which a player MUST be cautioned for unsporting
behaviour. That does NOT mean that a caution cannot be given
for anything else that the referee considers unsporting. That
is where the old “Ungentlemanly Conduct” (undefined)
was so useful, despite its non-PC phraseology.
If referees always booked for shirt pulling etc. wherever and
whenever it occurs, I feel it would cut a lot of this cynical
play out - except of course when a player still thinks
it’s worth the booking for “taking one for the
team”.
#Post#: 110596--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: ShoeRef
Date: August 20, 2026, 4:08 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Lanyardhater link ---
>
> (This continues the debate which started under the “Socks”
heading.)
>
> I dislike cynical play even more than foul play if I’m honest,
because the latter is usually accidental, but the former never
is.
>
> Confusion about when/where to caution for pull-backs, rugby
holding etc. is yet another thing that arises from the unwise
rewriting of the Laws to include too much detail. Even so, the
rewritten Law 12 does say “interferes with” as well as just
“stops” a promising attack. Thus it does allow for a player to
be cautioned after an advantage has been played.
>
> But the present discussion is about pulling back an opponent
in other situations. What I would say is that the Law only
lists offences for which a player MUST be cautioned for
unsporting behaviour. That does NOT mean that a caution cannot
be given for anything else that the referee considers
unsporting. That is where the old “Ungentlemanly Conduct”
(undefined) was so useful, despite its non-PC phraseology.
>
> If referees always booked for shirt pulling etc. wherever and
whenever it occurs, I feel it would cut a lot of this cynical
play out - except of course when a player still thinks it’s
worth the booking for “taking one for the team”.
>
--- End Quote ---
Whilst I do not disagree with your opinion / stance on such
matters, it is worth pointing out that Law 12.4, under
Advantage, very clearly states that (when advantage is played)
'if the offence was interfering with or stopping a promising
attack, the player is not cautioned.'
#Post#: 110602--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: Microscopist
Date: August 20, 2026, 4:50 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: ShoeRef link ---
>
> [quote author=Lanyardhater link=topic=8321.msg110553#msg110553
date=1787129341]
> (This continues the debate which started under the “Socks”
heading.)
>
> I dislike cynical play even more than foul play if I’m honest,
because the latter is usually accidental, but the former never
is.
>
> Confusion about when/where to caution for pull-backs, rugby
holding etc. is yet another thing that arises from the unwise
rewriting of the Laws to include too much detail. Even so, the
rewritten Law 12 does say “interferes with” as well as just
“stops” a promising attack. Thus it does allow for a player to
be cautioned after an advantage has been played.
>
> But the present discussion is about pulling back an opponent
in other situations. What I would say is that the Law only
lists offences for which a player MUST be cautioned for
unsporting behaviour. That does NOT mean that a caution cannot
be given for anything else that the referee considers
unsporting. That is where the old “Ungentlemanly Conduct”
(undefined) was so useful, despite its non-PC phraseology.
>
> If referees always booked for shirt pulling etc. wherever and
whenever it occurs, I feel it would cut a lot of this cynical
play out - except of course when a player still thinks it’s
worth the booking for “taking one for the team”.
>
--- End Quote ---
Whilst I do not disagree with your opinion / stance on such
matters, it is worth pointing out that Law 12.4, under
Advantage, very clearly states that (when advantage is played)
'if the offence was interfering with or stopping a promising
attack, the player is not cautioned.'
[/quote]
I suppose the law could be changed …… “ .. gaining or attempting
to gain an advantage by holding, shirt pulling …”
#Post#: 110607--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: ARF
Date: August 20, 2026, 8:13 am
---------------------------------------------------------
As ShoeRef has quoted above, you cannot caution for SPA if
advantage is played. There are some I know who would argue that
blatant shirt-pulling should always be a caution regardless of
SPA and/or advantage for "showing a lack of respect for the
game" under unsporting behaviour. I don't necessary disagree
with that idea outright, although I would say it should be a
judgement call for the referee, either for the worst offences,
for example where a shirt is ripped, or if the temperature of
the game is at a point where not cautioning may lead to further
issues. I definitely don't think a blanket designation of any
offence involving a shirt being pulled as a caution would be the
way to go.
#Post#: 110610--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: Ancientref
Date: August 20, 2026, 11:27 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Sorry ARF but you appear to be condoning shirt pulling . I can’t
agree with you there.it is another blight on the modern game
along with all the pushing, pulling and holding that goes on at
set pieces. We should be trying to eliminate these aspects of
the game and as it would appear that the clubs will not help and
presumably the PFA will not help it must be up to the match
officials. The only reason I can see for not eliminating this
curse is that the PGMOL is not prepared to stand up to a major
shareholder which doesn’t want its players cautioned and has
instructed its referees accordingly. Perhaps the solution is to
have shirts that are less easy to get a hold on….i can’t
remember it being a problem 50 years ago.
#Post#: 110620--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: gooner
Date: August 20, 2026, 1:34 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Ancientref link ---
>
> ...another blight on the modern game along with all the
pushing, pulling and holding that goes on at set pieces. We
should be trying to eliminate these aspects of the game and as
it would appear that the clubs will not help and presumably the
PFA will not help it must be up to the match officials. The only
reason I can see for not eliminating this curse is that the
PGMOL is not prepared to stand up to a major shareholder which
doesn’t want its players cautioned and has instructed its
referees accordingly.
>
--- End Quote ---
hi,
from bbc today...
HTML https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c0jl03lv775o
regards,
gnr
#Post#: 110621--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: ARF
Date: August 20, 2026, 2:33 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Ancientref link ---
>
> Sorry ARF but you appear to be condoning shirt pulling . I
can’t agree with you there.it is another blight on the modern
game along with all the pushing, pulling and holding that goes
on at set pieces. We should be trying to eliminate these aspects
of the game and as it would appear that the clubs will not help
and presumably the PFA will not help it must be up to the match
officials. The only reason I can see for not eliminating this
curse is that the PGMOL is not prepared to stand up to a major
shareholder which doesn’t want its players cautioned and has
instructed its referees accordingly. Perhaps the solution is to
have shirts that are less easy to get a hold on….i can’t
remember it being a problem 50 years ago.
>
--- End Quote ---
Think you're being rather over-dramatic there. Certainly not in
any matches I've refereed or watched lately has the issue of
shirt pulling been "a blight" nor "a curse" on the game. But if
your mileage varies, I can only recommend contacting IFAB to see
if they'll consider changes to the Laws - after all, they've
shown plenty of willingness to tinker over the last 10 years!
#Post#: 110636--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: Lanyardhater
Date: August 21, 2026, 6:03 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I knew there was more life in this debate - so I’m glad I
rescued it from death by socks!
I will try to steer a middle ground between the hyperbole and
the complacency of some recent posts. The first thing to say
is that I think it is undeniable that shirt pulling has got
considerably worse over recent decades. In old footage it is
rare to see (on old ‘Big Match Revisiteds’ for example). You
might see plenty of rough tackles but hardly any shirt pulling!
And if it did occur, it was then usually punished with a caution
for that old warhorse ‘Ungentlemanly Conduct’. It was as though
referees back then were rightly saying “This has no place in a
game of football”. I recall one game I was present at, where
there were, unusually for those days, no fewer than three
instances of pulling an opponent back by the shirt, and referee
John Yates of Redditch (he of the famous tape measure and
painted penalty-spot) booked all three. (This was before yellow
cards had been allowed to cross the Channel).
What worries me is that, since then, it seems to have gradually
become a normal part of football. If a player is getting away
from you and you can’t deal with that through speed or skill,
you pull them back. That’s what you do in football, it’s
expected and accepted. It’s just part of the game.
No it isn’t! Or it shouldn’t be. It has nothing to do with
football. It is never accidental, it is always deliberate. It
is always cynical. It is just so contrary to the ethos of
sport. Can you imagine a snooker player in the process of
taking a shot or a darts player about to throw, and being given
a little tug of the shirt by their opponent to put them off?
There would be outrage! But similar unsporting behaviour in
football is accepted (though of course only when one of your own
players does it!). And a little tug is often all it takes to put
an opponent off their stride, especially at speed, and achieve
the desired effect.
We shouldn’t have to wait for a shirt to be ripped before taking
action, should we? What if there were two identical cases in a
game where an opponent is tugged back by the shirt in a non-SPA
situation. One shirt is well made and doesn’t tear, the second
one rips. That offence gets the yellow card that the first,
identical, offence hadn’t received - based purely on the
quality of the tailoring! A surefire way to be accused of
inconsistency.
Let’s label shirt-pulling for what it is. It’s cheating. It
always leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I see it. And
especially when no booking follows. Because it’s more common
nowadays, and happens in any part of the pitch, referees don’t
want to book for it, except when it’s SPA, because they don’t
want a whole string of yellow cards. That is why I would
applaud Mr.Kitchen if he booked an attacker for pulling back a
defender, as claimed (I haven’t seen the incident). It doesn’t
have to be SPA to be unsporting behaviour, and it doesn’t only
have to apply to defenders.
It would only take a few weeks of every single instance of
shirt-pulling receiving an automatic caution, wherever and
whenever they happened, for us to see a dramatic reduction in
their occurrence, when everybody in football realises that it is
going to be routinely carded. The sanction would then need to
be kept up permanently, of course, not just a temporary
clamp-down, as these things so often are, unfortunately. The
extension of the 5-second countdowns this season has already
shown that player behaviour can be successfully modified, and
speedily, as long as all referees consistently adopt it. In the
matches I have watched live, I have seen a huge reduction in the
usual messing around, without needing the reversal of the
decision to be applied so far. It has been a deterrent to poor
behaviour, which is what good Law should be. I am certain the
same could be done for shirt-pulling. It will still occur when,
as I said in an earlier post, a player decides to “take one for
the team”. But they wouldn’t just be ‘risking’ a booking, they
would know beyond doubt that a card would follow.
Last season, I watched an U11 boys match and there was a fair
amount of shirt-pulling in that too. They see their ‘role
models’ doing it at the top levels and think it is an acceptable
thing to do. . And that is sad. The referee awarded free-kicks
but no cautions. So these ‘young offenders’ got away with their
unsporting acts, and will carry on doing it as they grow up into
adult footballers.
Okay, nobody dies when a shirt is pulled. But nobody dies when
the ball is kicked away either. Yet that is now regarded as an
automatic yellow card, and there are rarely any protests when
the punishment is applied, because it is well-known by players,
coaches and fans, and applied consistently by referees even at
grass-roots level. I feel the same approach is needed for
shirt-pulling, and, though I am not generally in favour of more
and more Law amendments, I really do think it is going to be
needed in this case, to make this cynical, non-footballing act
a mandatory caution in future - before it really does become a
‘curse’ and a ‘blight’ . . .
#Post#: 110638--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: rustyref
Date: August 21, 2026, 9:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Lanyardhater link ---
>
> I knew there was more life in this debate - so I’m glad I
rescued it from death by socks!
>
> I will try to steer a middle ground between the hyperbole and
the complacency of some recent posts. The first thing to say
is that I think it is undeniable that shirt pulling has got
considerably worse over recent decades. In old footage it is
rare to see (on old ‘Big Match Revisiteds’ for example). You
might see plenty of rough tackles but hardly any shirt pulling!
And if it did occur, it was then usually punished with a caution
for that old warhorse ‘Ungentlemanly Conduct’. It was as though
referees back then were rightly saying “This has no place in a
game of football”. I recall one game I was present at, where
there were, unusually for those days, no fewer than three
instances of pulling an opponent back by the shirt, and referee
John Yates of Redditch (he of the famous tape measure and
painted penalty-spot) booked all three. (This was before yellow
cards had been allowed to cross the Channel).
>
> What worries me is that, since then, it seems to have
gradually become a normal part of football. If a player is
getting away from you and you can’t deal with that through speed
or skill, you pull them back. That’s what you do in football,
it’s expected and accepted. It’s just part of the game.
>
> No it isn’t! Or it shouldn’t be. It has nothing to do with
football. It is never accidental, it is always deliberate. It
is always cynical. It is just so contrary to the ethos of
sport. Can you imagine a snooker player in the process of
taking a shot or a darts player about to throw, and being given
a little tug of the shirt by their opponent to put them off?
There would be outrage! But similar unsporting behaviour in
football is accepted (though of course only when one of your own
players does it!). And a little tug is often all it takes to put
an opponent off their stride, especially at speed, and achieve
the desired effect.
>
> We shouldn’t have to wait for a shirt to be ripped before
taking action, should we? What if there were two identical
cases in a game where an opponent is tugged back by the shirt in
a non-SPA situation. One shirt is well made and doesn’t tear,
the second one rips. That offence gets the yellow card that the
first, identical, offence hadn’t received - based purely on the
quality of the tailoring! A surefire way to be accused of
inconsistency.
>
> Let’s label shirt-pulling for what it is. It’s cheating. It
always leaves a sour taste in my mouth when I see it. And
especially when no booking follows. Because it’s more common
nowadays, and happens in any part of the pitch, referees don’t
want to book for it, except when it’s SPA, because they don’t
want a whole string of yellow cards. That is why I would
applaud Mr.Kitchen if he booked an attacker for pulling back a
defender, as claimed (I haven’t seen the incident). It doesn’t
have to be SPA to be unsporting behaviour, and it doesn’t only
have to apply to defenders.
>
> It would only take a few weeks of every single instance of
shirt-pulling receiving an automatic caution, wherever and
whenever they happened, for us to see a dramatic reduction in
their occurrence, when everybody in football realises that it is
going to be routinely carded. The sanction would then need to
be kept up permanently, of course, not just a temporary
clamp-down, as these things so often are, unfortunately. The
extension of the 5-second countdowns this season has already
shown that player behaviour can be successfully modified, and
speedily, as long as all referees consistently adopt it. In the
matches I have watched live, I have seen a huge reduction in the
usual messing around, without needing the reversal of the
decision to be applied so far. It has been a deterrent to poor
behaviour, which is what good Law should be. I am certain the
same could be done for shirt-pulling. It will still occur when,
as I said in an earlier post, a player decides to “take one for
the team”. But they wouldn’t just be ‘risking’ a booking, they
would know beyond doubt that a card would follow.
>
> Last season, I watched an U11 boys match and there was a fair
amount of shirt-pulling in that too. They see their ‘role
models’ doing it at the top levels and think it is an acceptable
thing to do. . And that is sad. The referee awarded free-kicks
but no cautions. So these ‘young offenders’ got away with their
unsporting acts, and will carry on doing it as they grow up into
adult footballers.
>
> Okay, nobody dies when a shirt is pulled. But nobody dies
when the ball is kicked away either. Yet that is now regarded as
an automatic yellow card, and there are rarely any protests when
the punishment is applied, because it is well-known by players,
coaches and fans, and applied consistently by referees even at
grass-roots level. I feel the same approach is needed for
shirt-pulling, and, though I am not generally in favour of more
and more Law amendments, I really do think it is going to be
needed in this case, to make this cynical, non-footballing act
a mandatory caution in future - before it really does become a
‘curse’ and a ‘blight’ . . .
>
--- End Quote ---
Where a player is getting away from an opponent and they pull
them back that is a mandatory caution if it stops a promising
attack. Where people get confused is they then think any shirt
pull is a caution, often perpetuated by commentators and
pundits. If a player is moving towards their own goal, or
running into a bank of opposing players, no promising attack has
been denied and arguably the foul has actually created a more
promising attack.
The other anomaly is where the referee sees a foul that stops a
promising attack but successfully plays an advantage. They are
not allowed to go back to caution in this scenario as the
promising attack still happened, therefore wasn't stopped. They
can only caution here if they deem it to be reckless, which
would be a real stretch for most shirt pulling. There will be
some, like when Chielini pulled back Saka in the Euro 2020
final, but they are few and far between.
#Post#: 110644--------------------------------------------------
Re: Cynical Pull-Backs
DIR By: Lanyardhater
Date: August 21, 2026, 10:30 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Your valid points illustrate exactly why the Law needs changing.
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