15:19 - 6.06.2018

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During the football game the referee shows a yellow card to warn the player and a red card to remove the player who committed gross violations. If during the game the player is shown two yellow cards, it automatically means one red card. Any fan knows that. But not everyone knows that the use of penalty cards was adopted only 50 years ago.

Prior to the use of cards, the judge announced to the player his fines orally. This often led to misunderstandings. So, at the ¼ finals of the World Cup in 1966, the teams of England and Argentina met. The game was led by German referee Rudolf Kreitlein who knew only his native German language. The game was quite rough, there were fights constantly. For rough actions, the judge decided to remove from the field of Argentine team player Antonio Rattina, and he behaved as if he did not understand anything. English judge Ken Aston intervened in the case, and then the violator player was removed from the field. After this incident, Ken Astun realized the necessity of a system of punishing players for sportsmanship, as it was difficult for referees to send the players away only with words.

Once when he was waiting in his car change of the signal of the traffic lights, an idea came into his mind:  his eyes pinned to a set of traffic lights. So, he inspired red and yellow cards.

"While i was driving the light turned red. I thought: "Yellow, calm down. Red, stop, go out" he recalls, thinking that the two cards and color would be a clear code for players who do not speak the same language. This idea was regarded positively.

For the first time, the cards were to be used to the referees at the World Cup in 1970 in Mexico and has since supplied with every football match.

The first yellow card in the history of football was shown by judge Kurt Tschenscher to Soviet player Kakhi Asatiani at the opening of the World Cup in Mexico during the game of teams of the USSR and Mexico.

The greatest number of penalty cards in the history of football was shown in 2006 at the World Cup, at 1/8 finals of the game between Holland and Portugal. Russian judge Valentin Ivanov showed 16 yellow and 4 red cards to the players.