Soccer player received a red card for farting during a match. I can’t even

If the headline makes you go, “Say WHAT?!”, you’re not alone.

But before you go crazy and think that it’s one of the Euro 2016 matches, relax—it isn’t. It was a match between Järna SK’s reserve team and Pershagen SK in the Swedish professional football league known as Allsvenskan.

Adam Lindin Ljungkvist, a 25-year-old defender in the Jarna SK reserve team, broke wind in the second half of the match. It was supposedly so loud that he received a yellow card—his second—and therefore was given the boot.

He told The Guardian that he had a bad stomach, so he simply farted. “Then I received two yellow cards and then red. Yes, I was shocked, it’s the strangest thing I have ever experienced in football.”

According to the paper, a striker from Pershagen SK heard the fart “loud and clear” even when he was pretty far away from him.

Ljungkvist confronted the referee, asking why he was not allowed to fart. The referee just replied with a “No”, and Ljungkvist thought that maybe the referee had believed that Ljungkvist farted in his hand and tossed it at him. It sure is a strange notion, with Ljungkvist even denying doing that.

The referee, Dany Kako, did not find it amusing. He saw it as a “deliberate provocation” and “unsportsmanlike behaviour”. He insisted that it was done on purpose and that it was “inappropriate”. In fact, he added that this was not the only disgusting thing he had encountered in his career. He recalled, “Once there was a player who stood and peed next to the pitch…I showed him a yellow card, too.”

According to Law 12 of the Laws of The Game, which is used by FIFA for their soccer matches, these are the offences that warrant a yellow card:

1. Unsporting behaviour
2. Dissent by word or action
3. Persistent infringement of the Laws of the Game
4. Delaying the restart of play
5. Failure to respect the required distance when play is restarted with a corner kick, throw-in or free kick
6. Entering or re-entering the field of play without the referee’s permission
7. Deliberately leaving the field of play without the referee’s permission

In 2004, a player removing his jersey during a celebration of a goal has been championed by then FIFA President Sepp Blatter to be deemed a yellow card, under the point “Unsporting behaviour”. In other words, the first point is somewhat ambiguous: could farting is considered “unsporting behaviour”, since Ljungkvist has explicitly mentioned that he had a bad stomach?

Two years ago, one of the weirdest yellow cards was shown, also in a Swedish professional football league match. Norwegian international Jan Gunnar Solli caught a bouncing ball underneath his shirt and ran past a player—only to be booked immediately. His team was then leading by five goals and that must have been done in jest instead of in desperation.

And if you’re wondering, no, it wasn’t the same referee.

Top Image: Volt Collection / Shutterstock.com

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com