AMONG the hundred or so alterations to the Laws of the Game in the last two years, there is one which has gone unheralded, although it has considerable ramifications.

It’s something that didn’t need saying, but shows how top referees can seem to be influenced by the media.

What brings it to mind now, is the flare-up between Harry McGuire of Leicester and Dwight Gayle of Newcastle, when in their recent Premier League match, McGuire pushed Gayle in the face.

Similar altercations between opposing players have often caused television commentators to cry, ‘pushing someone in the face, raising your hands, that’s a sending off offence’.

Referees have seemed to agree and gone for the red card.

But how valid is that statement and how valid has it ever been?

Even it the offence can be considered as striking, striking in itself is not a sending off offence, to be that it has to be with excessive force.

The only one of the direct free-kick offences that is an automatic sending off offence, is the nasty one of spitting at anyone.

As most of these incidents tend to happen when the game is stopped, then technically it cannot be a foul and becomes misconduct.

To be a sending-off offence, striking has to violent conduct.

What the laws says is, ‘Violent conduct is when a player uses or attempts to use excessive force or brutality against an opponent or against any other person, regardless of whether contact is made’.

Now there’s a new clause.

‘In addition, a player, when not challenging for the ball, deliberately strikes an opponent or any other person, on the head or face with the hand or arm, is guilty of violent conduct, unless (an important little word) the force used was negligible’.

So the referee, Stuart Attwell, was correct in treating McGuire’ push in Gayle’s face not as violent conduct but unsporting behaviour, and a yellow card.