Players in Portugese national league get the most straight red cards per match in Europese national leagues. Each five matches in 2010/2011 season Portoguse referees showed (on average( one straight red card.

Belgium, Spain, Romania and The Netherlands complete the top five of countries with hard players. Or are the referees just mild in countries like Norway (1 straight red in 21 matches), Czech Republic (1 in 15) or Ukrain (1 in 14)?

In the infographic below, you can see the ‘reddest’ country based on data from Worldfootball.net and Futebol365.pt. How darker the tint, the less matches are played on average before a straight red card is handed out. The value ‘0,208333333’ in Portugal means that statistically five (5×0,208333333>1) matches need to be played for the first red card. No data available of light blue countries.

These stats does only show an average. Portugal is not the country with most straight red cards. That ‘honour’ is for players in Spanish competition with a total of 59; 56 in Italy and 50 in Portugal.

With the start of the Dutch competition Dutch referee boss Dick van Egmond announced that referees should pull the red card faster out of their pockets in case of hard offences. The result: four straight red cards in nine matches.