Le Bris criticises rules after Ballard is sent off for hair pull | OneFootball

Regis Le Bris criticised the red card rules after Dan Ballard was sent off in Sunderland’s 1-1 draw against Wolves.

Ballard was shown red after pulling Tolu Arokodare’s when the pair went up for a header on the half way line.

Sunderland are not the only team that have been penalised with a red card for a hair pull, Lisandro Martinez and Michael Keane have also been sent off for similar offences this season.

Le Bris said that he thinks the rules should be changed.

““We understand the rule,” Le Bris said.

“Paul Tierney is a great referee but the execution of the rule is hard. It’s really hard to digest because I don’t think it was an intentional and violent conduct.

“It was a duel in the air with a tall striker, 1.9 metres plus, 100 kilos more or less. Ballard is massive as well… 20 times in the game [they duel] many things can happen but it wasn’t intentional. If the rule is the rule, probably when you face a striker with long hair, you’ll have problems because you can’t defend. It was more or less the case. They executed the rule but I think it’s a bit hard to digest.”

“We are here to help the game, to help the Premier League. Many people are watching the Premier League.

“We want to be clean in our behaviours. But at the same time, football is football, so you have to create the rules to make it clean for the footballers as well. I think when it’s not intentional, it was an accident, it’s hard to execute the rules like it was intentional.

“Sometimes handball is the same, there is always a grey area, and probably with this rule, we are at that stage where you have to manage the rules to make it clean for different situations.

“I don’t want to say too much about this because it wasn’t the main topic of the game. For us, the most important thing was the reaction. The way we played, we showed that we are a good team, we can react after a strong defeat. That’s the most important thing.”