More on Red Cards Specific to WA Youth Soccer

Andrew Boyd provides some additional detail regarding red cards with respect to playing in Washington Youth Soccer leagues....

There are 7 different types of red cards, and each can have different consequences. When a player receives a red card, they cannot play in the match anymore, and if they were one of the players of record (the active players on the field during the match) the team may need to play short for the rest of the match.

Substitutes who are sent off do not require that the team play shorthanded. In addition, the recipient of a red card is suspended for at least one more match. The WYS disciplinary committee has established the following MINIMUM suspensions of a person receives a red card:


Penalties for being Sent Off:

Serious Foul Play: Examples include, but are not necessarily limited to: when a player, in a violent or dangerous manner intentionally holds, trips, pushes, charges or tackles an opponent from behind: 
     1 match

Violent Conduct: Examples include but are not necessarily limited to: striking or attempting to strike another player, team official or spectator, or unlawfully entering the field of play during an altercation:
     2 matches (3 if conduct is directed towards an official)

Spitting at another person:
     2 matches (3 if spitting at an official)

Denying a goal by handling the ball:
     1 match

Denying an obvious goal score opportunity by unlawful means:
     1 match

Foul or abusive language or gestures: Examples include, but are not necessarily limited to: Foul or abusive language said loud enough for the game official to hear, but not directed at a specific individual. Includes, racial, sexual, religious or ethnic slurs:
     1 match (not directed at another)


     2 matches (directed at a player)


     3 matches (directed at a referee)

Send Off for Second Cautionable Offense during a match:
     1 match
Suspensions can also be imposed if there is an accumulation of points from cards accumulated in the season. Cautions (Yellows) count as one point, and Send Offs (Reds) count as three. If a player receives a Send off because they received two cautions in a match, the total count for that game is set at three. There are 4 cases where point accumulations and cards can result in further suspensions:
• Players/coaches that accumulate three red cards/ejections in a seasonal year will be subject to disciplinary actions.

• Players that accumulate seven (7) points from red and/or yellow card accumulation during the seasonal year will be subject to disciplinary actions.

• A coach of a team receiving fifteen (15) points accumulated from red and/or yellow cards during the seasonal year, will be subject to disciplinary actions.

• The coach of a team that has four players who received red cards during the seasonal year will be subject to disciplinary actions.

Note also that “points” reset each season, and that state tournaments often have their own sections that talk about point accumulation within the tournament play. Points do not transfer between league play and tournament, but suspensions may transfer, if there are no more games from the competition that the player was suspended from (example, player receives a one game suspension from a red card received in the last game of the season, then the player must sit out their next WYS match, which may be the state tournament).