Has any pro or college soccer match ever been ended early because of too many players one one team getting red carded? The reason I ask is because I’m a video game tester working on a soccer game, and the game referees stop handing out red cards once the offending team is down to seven players. Penalty kicks and such are still awarded to the other team, though.
Google variations on ‘“less than seven players” football/soccer abandoned match’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/1658055.stm
http://archive.thisisworcestershire.co.uk/2000/11/20/348350.html
Admittedly neither of these was solely due to red cards, but certainly the laws of the game were followed.
Ah hah, thanks. Not being a soccer fan, I wasn’t sure what terms to use and I got too many hits.
From “The Laws of the Game”:
http://www.fifa.com/en/regulations/regulation/0,1584,3,00.html
Players
A match is played by two teams, each consisting of not more than
eleven players, one of whom is the goalkeeper. A match may not start
if either team consists of fewer than seven players.
Decision 1
Subject to the overriding conditions of Law 3, the minimum number of
players in a team is left to the discretion of member associations. The
Board is of the opinion, however, that a match should not continue if
there are fewer than seven players in either team.
Like the newslinks above make clear, games certainly have been ended early because either side had too few players on the field. Although according to Laws of the Game also linked above only the “a match may not start if either team consists of fewer than seven players” rule is mandatory, this is also followed during the game in international matches and if a team is reduced to six players (five field players, as there must always be a goalkeeper), the game ends early. About football games played within individual countries, when they say that “Subject to the overriding conditions of Law 3, the minimum number of players in a team is left to the discretion of member associations. The Board is of the opinion, however, that a match should not continue if there are fewer than seven players in either team.”, most associations probably follow this suggestion. The seven players minimum is recognized and followed in Finland, for example, though the national association’s rules note that the referee could consider continuing the game even if there are less, provided that he or she thinks the game is still, and will remain, expressing ‘sportsmanlike conduct’. This would of course be very unlikely in a situation where a team had gone from 11 players to 6 because of red cards.
So regarding the video game you’re testing, it appears that the game is successfully avoiding the early ending due to a too few players situation by having its referees not to give reds when they should. This is understandable in a video game as human players like their matches to be full length, and on the other hand their sides are being kept more equal as both have enough players to compete, but this is definitely a deviation of the real rules which state that a player must be sent off the game provided he commits a serious offence.
Most football video games that I have played simply abandon the game if more than 4 players get sent off. This seems a better solution to me than not applying the laws correctly.
Football (soccer) no nothing here.
So the penalty for too few players is abandonment of the game, basically a reschedule? It seems to me that, in that case, a team that finds itself hopelessly losing to a team they should be able to beat would only have to have enough players disqualified to force abandonment. Then they get to replay the game from scratch and get another chance to win.
I would think that forfeiture of the match would be the more apporpriate penalty.
Abandoned matches can be awarded to one team or the other by the relevant governing authority, if the situation merits punishment - one recent example from the Milan derby, where Inter were penalised, which had nothing to do with the minimum number of players. If a team was cynical enough to force abandonment in this way, the very least that would happen would be that a win would be awarded against them.
I can’t fathom a match being rescheduled and replayed from scratch if it were abandoned because of excessive fouls unless both teams were playing rough.
I would think most federations would award a win to the other team and likely hit the other team with sanctions.
Or investigate the referee for corruption.