Imagine what the retrospective punishment for Gary Lineker will be when the authorities find out what he did on the pitch against Ireland at Italia ’90.
Trawl through the footballing archives and you’ll come across red cards being issued in very strange circumstances but none of those will be a patch on what might happen in our own domestic league if Airtricity League officials end up having to apply the rules set forth in their latest directive.
The fairly bizarre directive was mentioned in
a story by Daniel McDonnell in the Irish Independent today, revealing that, in light of recent incidents, Airtricity League referees have been instructed to dismiss any players or officials caught emptying their bladders in the open instead of using the available facilities.
"We have been advised by the referee representatives that there have been a number of instances this season where players (including substitutes) have been found to be urinating in the open rather than availing of the toilet facilities," read the statement, which was quoted in the Irish Independent.
"Please note that referees have been instructed to issue a red card and/or removal from the technical area of any player, substitute or member of the technical staff found to be offending in this manner."
The natural response is to check that it’s not April Fools’ Day and that nobody is (to use a phrase appropriate in the circumstances) extracting the urine but it seems clear that the league’s number one priority at the moment is to flush this sort of toilet behaviour out of the domestic game for good.
