Before 2004, players taking their shirts off to celebrate a goal was often a trademark.
Since then however, it’s become a yellow card offence. Players still do it,
often getting carried away in the last minute of games or following
particularly important goals, but with the acceptance that it will carry a caution.
And when it does happen, fans generally hate it, believing it to be a petty rule
and killjoy legislation which is counter to the game’s spirit.
But why aren’t players allowed to take off their shirts?
The subsections of International Football Association Board’s Law
12 deal with what a player can and cannot do after scoring a goal.
Among the actions prohibited are:
Climbing onto a perimeter fence and/or approaching the spectators in a manner
which causes safety and/or security issues
Acting in a provocative, derisory or inflammatory way
Covering the head or face with a mask or other similar item
And, finally:
Removing the shirt or covering the head with the shirt.
It’s a group of rules which players have conistently
fallen foul of. Sometimes even in comedic ways.
In 2012, for instance, Hannover’s Szabolcs Huszti
scored a late-winner in a game against Werder Bremen and celebrated by, first,
taking his shirt off and then climbing the perimeter fence behind the goal. The
referee treated them as separate incidents and sent Huszti off with two yellow cards.
That kind of pedantry is thankfully rare, but yellow cards for removing shirts are a
week-to-week occurrence. With what justification?
Well, there’s no one reason. Instead, the rules exists for five separate reasons:
Most famously, it’s a way of protecting sponsors’ investment and preventing logos
from being hidden at highly-photographed moments within games. Most people already known that,
though, and understand the justification behind it.
Additionally, however, a blanket ban on shirt removal is a measure against
over-celebration – taking a shirt off is deemed a provocative act and
a means of inciting aggression from other players or even supporters in the stadium.
It also prevents players from showing messages under their shirts,
which can obviously also be provocative in nature or political or religious.
Former Liverpool forward Robbie Fowler provided a good example of this back in 1995. After scoring
in a Cup Winners’ Cup tie against Brann Bergen, Fowler lifted his shirt to reveal
a t-shirt in support of 500 Mersey dockers who had been sacked as part of a labour dispute.
Fowler was fined in the aftermath by UEFA, who prohibited the display of political messages
even then. Nearly a decade later, the promise of a yellow card added a further deterrent,
even to players sending birthday wishes to their children or best wishes to an injured teammate.
After scoring the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final against the Netherlands,
Andres Iniesta removed his shirt to reveal a t-shirt in memory of Dani Jarque, who had
been his teammate at international youth level and who, tragically, had died the year before.
Iniesta was booked for his celebration which – contextually and given the
benevolence of his gesture – seemed mean-spirited
to say the least. But the rules don’t allow for that kind of interpretation.
And they do also serve a more functional purpose.
Preventing players from taking off the shirts is potentially
also a measure against time-wasting. As kit design became more intricate,
some players would struggle to replace shirts after taking them off. Famously,
after scoring a later winner for Manchester United against Southampton, Diego Forlan took off his
shirt in celebration, but was then unable to put it back on correctly before the game restarted.
As a consequence, he was left chasing around the pitch without a shirt during stoppage time,
which – as well as being an absurd spectacle – could potentially have created an identification
problem with the officials. Given that Forlan was half-naked and had long,
distinguished blonde hair, it seems unlikely that any referee would have
confused him for another player, but – still – it’s just another explanation
for a law that’s justification has always remained intentionally vague.