Professional foul

In sports, a professional foul is a deliberate act of foul play, usually to prevent an opponent scoring. The British playwright Tom Stoppard wrote a play for television, Professional Foul , based on the concept, which was first broadcast on BBC-2's "Play of the Week" on September 24, 1977, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and starring Peter Barkworth and Stephen Rea. (This predates the 1980 coinage claim made below.)

Association football

The concept was introduced in football after a famous incident in the 1980 FA Cup Final when Willie Young of Arsenal committed a deliberate foul on Paul Allen of West Ham, when Allen had a clear run at goal. As the laws of the game stood, the referee (George Courtney) could only award West Ham a free kick, which he did. This provoked a national debate on deliberate fouls that denied opponents the chance to score a goal. At the time, the English game was suffering a downturn in attendances and the chairmen of the Football League clubs decided to consider ways in which the game could be made exciting. A subcommittee was appointed to produce some suggestions, chaired by Jimmy Hill and including Sir Matt Busby and Bobby Charlton.

The sub-committee produced several suggestions, including making the professional foul a mandatory red card offence, which they submitted to the IFAB for consideration. All the suggestions were defeated. However, the Football League was determined to have their way, and instructed its referees that professional fouls (including deliberate handball to stop a goal being scored) should be deemed serious foul play, which was and is a mandatory red card offence. The new interpretation was first issued to referees prior to the 1982-83 season, and the first player (probably) to be sent off for a professional foul was Lawrie Sanchez in the Football League Trophy.

FIFA first instructed its referees to send off for a professional foul prior to the 1990 World Cup, and in 1991 the provision that a professional foul should be considered serious foul play was incorporated into the Laws as a Decision of the IFAB. The professional foul was made a red card offence in its own right in 1998.

Subsequently, the wording of Law 12 was changed and the term professional foul was replaced by denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to remove the implication that in order for a red card to be issued, such a foul had to be deliberate. Currently, if a player denies a player an obvious goalscoring opportunity by foul means, whether deliberate or not, he is sent off.

Rugby football

Both codes of rugby football currently recognise the concept of a professional foul. Referees are instructed to sanction professional fouls with a yellow card: since in rugby this means being sent to the sin bin, it is a lesser punishment than in football.

See also

• Penalty box