Why Man Utd’s Lisandro Martinez Red Card Appeal Was Rejected

The Red Devils were not impressed with his sending off in the recent defeat to Leeds.

There was disbelief from all those of a Man Utd persuasion. | James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images

Manchester United tried and failed to appeal the controversial red card shown to Lisandro Martínez during this month’s Premier League defeat to Leeds United, forcing the center back to serve a three-match suspension as originally sanctioned.

Martínez was sent off early in the second of the match at Old Trafford on April 13, with Leeds already 2–0 ahead and going on to claim a 2–1 victory. In an aerial clash with Dominic Calvert-Lewin, the Argentine was adjudged to have pulled the striker’s hair.

Carrick objected to the decision, made following a VAR review, highlighting the initial contact made by Calvert-Lewin on Martínez.

“That decision was one of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Carrick fumed after the game. “[Calvert-Lewin] can throw his arms in Licha’s face—and then he’s sent off. Shocking. I don’t even know what it looks like. It’s not a pull, it’s not a tug, it’s not aggressive. He touches [the hair] and he gets sent off. We have got to be careful where the game is going. It is a shocking decision, absolutely shocking.”

Martínez was banned for three matches in line with the usual suspension for violent conduct offenses. He was ruled out of last weekend’s vital win over Chelsea, before which Carrick reiterated his dim view of the red card but didn’t explicitly address whether it had been appealed.

“It’s obvious how I felt after the game, and I still feel that way now. I don’t want to go into it now. It is what it is. We have to accept it and move on,” he said at the time.

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Why Man Utd’s Lisandro Martínez Appeal Failed

A red card was shown after a VAR review. | Visionhaus/Getty Images

With the publication of the FA’s judgement, it is confirmed an appeal was filed and was unsuccessful.

The written reasons explained that a letter from Manchester United’s club secretary dated two days after the match “set out in detail” why they felt the dismissal was “wrongful” and the standard punishment in this instance “would be clearly excessive.”

In wrongful dismissal cases such as these, the burden is on the appealing club to provide evidence that an “obvious error” has been made by the match officials. Alongside the letter, the Red Devils submitted three videos to support the appeal. One was the full incident between Calvert-Lewin and Martínez, one was contact made on Leny Yoro during the match, and another was a more blatant hair-pulling incident in February for which Fulham’s Kenny Tete was not sent off.

Ultimately what the presiding regulatory commission members—former Premier League referee Steve Bennett, 1994–95 Premier League champion Stuart Ripley, ex-Southampton defender Francis Benali—unanimously decided is that it wasn’t an “obvious error” to dismiss Martínez.

The judgement stated: “The pulling of a person’s hair can be interpreted to fall outside the normal constituent elements of a challenge in football and can therefore fall into the category of violent conduct. The commission did not feel that it could be said with any confidence that the force exerted by [Lisandro Martínez] on [Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s] hair/scalp was negligible.”

In the eyes of the commission, Martínez “grasped” the hair and Calvert-Lewin reacted in a way which “suggested that he had felt a certain amount of force exerted upon his hair/scalp.” Therefore, “it was not outside the parameters of reasonableness for the Referee to have interpreted the VAR footage in the way that he did and he could not, therefore, be said to have made an obvious error.”

In response to the claim that it was an excessive punishment, the commission recognized that hair pulling is low on the violent conduct scale. However, the view is that it “ought not to be tolerated” in soccer in any way. As a result, hair pulling “should be discouraged through consistent punishment.”

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Which Man Utd Games Lisandro Martínez Will Miss

Ayden Heaven shone in Martínez’s absence at Chelsea. | James GillDanehouse/Getty Images

Martínez has already served the first of the three-match ban. The final two games he will miss are the upcoming Premier League clashes with Brentford (April 27) and Liverpool (May 3).

The Argentina international will be eligible to return when United travel to Sunderland on May 9.

The suspension might have been more disastrous had events unfolded slightly differently.

United’s grip on a top-five place in the Premier League standings has been strengthened by Chelsea’s collapse and last weekend’s victory over the Blues. Champions League qualification, while not mathematically guaranteed at this stage, appears fairly safe already and will be secured with two more wins from five remaining fixtures.

Harry Maguire is available once more after his own two-match suspension relating to a controversial dismissal—and his response to—against Bournemouth last month. Ayden Heaven has also reemerged, rising to the occasion with an outstanding performance against Chelsea.

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