Antonio Rattin’s ‘Violence of the tongue’

For many people in Argentina, Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ in 1986 was revenge on England for another World Cup quarter final between the two countries twenty years earlier where the South Americans felt they were cheated. Hosts England won the game 1-0 through a 78th minute Geoff Hurst goal, but not before Argentina had had captain Antonio Rattin scandalously sent off in the 35th minute for arguing with referee Rudolf Kreitlein. Rattin initially refused to leave the field, believing that the ref wanted England to win, and when he did finally walk the 29-year-old insulted the Queen. Three Lions manager Sir Alf Ramsey let rip at the opposition with comments that were viewed as racist in Argentina. “We have still to produce our best, and this is not possible until we meet the right sort of opponents, and that is a team that comes out to play football and not act as animals,” sniped Ramsey. Post match statistics showed that Argentina had committed only 19 fouls in the game, to England’s 33, while the referee spoke no Spanish so could not have understood what Rattin said to him. Back in South America, it was pointed out that the referee in the England game was German, while the official in Germany’s equally controversial quarter final was English. The events surrounding the refereeing draw for these two games added further suspicions. The representatives of Argentina, Uruguay, Spain and the Soviet Union were invited to a London hotel for the draw. They arrived on time, but found out that the draw had already been made without them, with the only witnesses being FIFA's English president Stanley Rous, a German representative, and a couple of Africans. This dubious situation strengthened conspiracy talk, and led to Dutch referee infamously declaring that "FIFA is controlled by three people - Sir, Stanley, Rous."

The origin of the Penalty Card :
The idea of using language-neutral coloured cards to communicate a referee's intentions originated with British football referee Ken Aston. Aston had been appointed to the FIFA Referees' Committee and was responsible for all referees at the 1966 FIFA World Cup. In the quarter finals, England met Argentina at Wembley Stadium. After the match, newspaper reports stated that referee Rudolf Kreitlein had cautioned both Bobby and Jack Charlton, as well as sending off Argentinian Antonio Rattin. The referee had not made his decision clear during the game, and England manager Alf Ramsey approached FIFA for post-match clarification. This incident started Aston thinking about ways to make a referee's decisions clearer to both players and spectators. Aston realised that a colour-coding scheme based on the same principle as used on traffic lights (yellow – stop if safe to do so, red – stop) would transcend language barriers and make it clear that a player had been cautioned or expelled. As a result, yellow cards to indicate a caution and red cards to indicate an expulsion were used for the first time in the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Evgeny Lovchev former Soviet Union Player became the first player to be booked on a World Cup match, in the opening game of the tournament against Mexico. The story of Lovchev and this very first penalty card here : World Cup Top 100 - N°95 : Evgeny LOVCHEV. And before all this story Antonio Rattin loved his England's trip :

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