The referee who sent off Declan Rice in controversial circumstances during Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion last month admitted that he ‘doesn’t like the rule’.
Rice was already on a booking when he sought to block Joel Veltman’s attempts to take a quick free-kick, tapping the ball away as the Dutchman began swinging his leg.
Veltman struck Rice with force having missed the ball, and when Chris Kavanagh brought out a red card, some expected it to be shown to the Brighton defender for violent conduct. However, it was instead given to the Arsenal midfielder.
During this week’s edition of Match Officials Mic’d Up, where Premier League refereeing decisions are explained by Howard Webb, audio from the game revealed Kavanagh’s reluctance to send Rice off.
“Dec, you need to go,” Kavanagh said to Rice.
“I don’t like it [the rule], I don’t like it. But [Rice has] knocked the ball. He’s kicked the ball. Dec, you need to go I’m afraid.”
When explaining the decision to Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard, Kavanagh added: “I have no choice. He’s put me…in an awful position.”
Part of the reason why Arsenal were so enraged by the decision to send Rice off was that the ball was still rolling when he kicked it away, meaning Veltman’s free-kick wouldn’t have been legal anyways.
But Webb, a former top-level referee himself, sought to explain why this didn’t matter in the grand scheme of the incident.
“It may have been rolling, but Declan Rice still felt the need to kick that ball away,” Webb said.
“It still has that impact and we have to look at what the player does in that situation. He acts in a way that is very clear, he makes a decision to take the ball away from the opponent.
“It’s the referee’s job to deal with everything else, but in this situation, the actions of Rice were designed to delay the restart so therefore I don’t think he can have any complaints when his actions resulted in a yellow card.
“In that situation, the referee focuses on Rice’s actions and determines he has to deal with him because those actions are intentionally designed to kick the ball away when he had no business going near the ball in the first place.
“Having given away a free-kick, Rice knows he has got to get away and let that free-kick be taken and the referee deals with everything else.”
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