The question of what red card means in soccer and why it is given has often been asked by lovers and newbies in the sport.

There are two cards shown to football players, the yellow and red cards. When yellow card is shown to a player, he continues playing but in a more careful way. When red card is shown to a player he leaves the pitch.

What is Red Card?

Red card is a dismissal given to football players for extreme violent conduct on the pitch.

When football players gives a very harsh tackle to their opponents, the referee often gauges how severe the tackle is. If it’s extreme, he shows the player a red card.

How is Red Card given?

There are basically two ways red cards are being shown to football players. The first being a double Yellow Card and the second a straight Red Card.

The yellow card is generally known as a warning shown to players who are violent to their opponents, expected to stop the player from playing violently. If the player persist and gives another violent display, he’ll be shown a second Yellow Card which sums up to be Red Card.

The straight Red Card are given on rare occasions to players who are extreme in their violent display.

What does Red Card means?

When a Red Card is shown to a player, it means the player is dismissed from that match and he or she is suspended from the next matche(s).

The suspension varies. The amount of match suspension given to a player who got double Yellow Cards is different from the match suspension given to a player who was shown a straight Red Card.

Double Yellow Cards to Red Card

If a player is shown double Yellow Cards, it simply means the player have been warned for his violent style of play but still kept up with same harsh style of play.

In most footballing countries across this world, this kind of Red Card comes with just one match suspension.

The player in question is subjected to miss the next match his team plays but due to return after that match.

Straight Red Card

Straight Red Card are given to players when their violent style of play is at its extreme and these are on relatively rare occasions.

Around the world, when a player is shown a straight Red Card, the player is expected to miss two matches and expected to return to the pitch with his team after serving his two match suspension. But on rare occasions, the Football governing body of some countries give three match suspension to straight Red Carded players.

Can Red Card be overturned?

Yes, if a Red Card was wrongly shown to a player by the referee, it can be overturned by the football governing body of the player’s club appeals.

Referees can mistake a simple violent play to be an extreme violent play and send the player off by showing a Red Card to the player.

In cases like these, the player’s team can appeal to the football governing body, it’ll be reviewed and overturned if it truly wasn’t violent.