Papadopoulos gets yellow by VAR for simulation

Greek Hamburger SV player Papadopoulos tried to fool the referee. Not his opponent got red after consulting the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), but he got a yellow for fooling the referee.

It was a strange game on Friday between Hamburger SV and 1er FC Köln. Especially from a refereeing aspect:

• Felix Brych got injured and had to be replaced
• Sören Storks is recently promoted to the Bundesliga referees and makes a surprising debut
• Sören Storks has to give a second yellow shortly after he replaced Brych. He was alert as 4th official, it would have been odd if he didn’t know who already got a yellow card.

The incident in injury time

And then an incident on the goal-line in the 7th minute of injury time. There were 13 because Brych got injured.

Firstly, as ref you need to be brave to step between to angry players, but he managed to prevent them getting into a fight. And then Papadopoulos started some theatrics.

Is the VAR allowed to review simulation like this? You’ll read more below the video.

When the VAR will take action

The Video Assist Center will only give advice when there is a clear error. As written in the blog about the Video Assist Center. The video refs will only act in the following situations:

• Goal or no goal
• Penalty kick decisions
• Red card situations
• Situations when a wrong player is punished

Papadopoulos: dive or red?

Diving is not on the review list from DFB and Bundesliga. So why did he get punished for simulation? I think the VAR was checking if there was a possible red card situation, based on the reaction from Papadopoulos. It looked quite intense to be honest.

In my opinion the VAR did the right thing. What if you notice it is not a red card situation, but see some clear simulation. If you know that for sure after checking a possible red card situation, for me that’s reason enough to show that card.

Players will think twice now after punishing Papadopoulos. Big brother is watching you, so don’t do stupid things.

Ban or yellow

I am curious what you think of a yellow card for obvious simulation like this. Is a yellow card enough or should players receive bans? Please let me know in the comments.