Referees

Soccer referees do not generally get the better of their opponents during fights. This can be chalked up to referees rarely fighting, preferring to try to calm a situation down even when sucked into a violent confrontation.

This referee in Argentina, though, is a bad ass mother who don't take nothing off of nobody. He red cards a player, who takes offense and starts swinging. The referee coolly ducks then squares up and hits back.

(the fight starts just after the 5:00 mark)

The massively experienced Bibiana Steinhaus, who will officiate this season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League final, has been promoted to refereeing the Bundesliga after six seasons in the second division. Steinhaus will become the first female referee in the history of the Bundesliga when she officiates a match next season.

Today, May 18, 2017 — a date which will live in history — the Football Association voted, in unison, to introduce retrospective two-match bans for players found guilty of diving or feigning injury, an offense which heretofore was a shameful stain upon our beloved game.

Lionel Messi's four-match ban for allegedly insulting a referee has been overturned by FIFA. Messi sat out one match, a 2-0 loss to Bolivia in La Paz, before the FIFA appeals committee made its ruling.

This is good news for Argentina, for whom qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia is still up in the air. La Albiceleste sitting fifth, in the play-off spot, one point behind Chile and Uruguay and two points ahead of Ecuador. They cannot afford any slip-ups, which are much more plentiful when Lionel Messi is not in the lineup.

Article 49 of the official Champions League regulations stipulates how repeated yellow card cautions are dealt with and when lingering yellow cards are wiped. A suspension for yellow card accumulation is a threat from the group stage until the quarterfinals, and receiving a yellow-card suspension in the second leg of the quarters will also carry over into the semifinal first leg.

It was going to be a tall task for Leicester City to go into Vicente Calderón Stadium and come away with a victory, it will be even harder if the referee is giving away penalties.

With the referee trailing closely, Antoine Griezmann made a run down the left side when Marc Albrighton clipped the Frenchman clearly outside the box. But the referee thought otherwise and awarded Atletico a penalty.

Barcelona's slim chances of winning La Liga took another hit Tuesday when it was announced Neymar's rumored ban for sarcastically clapping at an official after he'd been sent off against Malaga had been made official.

The Brazilian attacker will miss three matches: April 15 against Real Sociedad, April 23 against Real Madrid and April 26 against Osasuna. Barcelona were already in dire need of a win against Real Madrid in El Clasico to keep their La Liga hopes alive, and missing 1/3 of their attacking buzzsaw will make their task that much more difficult.