Player Celebrations

Not that long ago in football players were allowed to celebrate with their fans. These days rules restrict what players are allowed to do. If players take off their shirt or jump into the crowd they will be given a yellow card. Should players really be getting punished for this?

It would seem crazy to me if a player was to receive a second yellow and be sent off for celebrating a moment the whole team has worked for. As long as they do not waste too much time or celebrate in an inappropriate fashion, for example infront of the opposition supporters then their is no reason why they should not be allowed to jump over the advertising boards and engage with fans.

For example on the 22nd January 2011, Frederic Piquionne scored what he thought was to be the winning goal for West Ham against Everton in the 85th minute. He jumped over the advertising boards and celebrated with his team mates infront of the travelling West Ham supporters. When he came back onto the pitch the referee gave him his second yellow and dismissed him. To make things even worse for West Ham, Everton then scored an equaliser in stoppage time, arguably due to the extra player on the field. After the game Avram Grant was very extremely angry with the referee's decision, calling it a "joke".

Also as an example of an inappropriate (though funny) celebration was when Adebayor faced his old club Arsenal, playing for Manchester City. He obviously felt he had been treated badly at Arsenal as usually players who score against their old club refuse to celebrate or keep it low key. Not Adebayor, he sprinted the whole length of the pitch, faster than the cameraman could keep up with, just to celebrate in front of the travelling Arsenal supporters. As you can imagine this didn't go down well with the travelling supporters and objects were thrown in his direction. To me this is behaviour that warrants a booking as he has caused fans to start being violent, making stewards have to hold fans back.



I think the FA needs to take a more relaxed view on players celebrating as I feel players engaging with the fans can only be good for the club. Obviously there are always going to issues with when players take it too far and when this happens I can understand bookings etc, but on the whole it is a good thing for the game and keeps greater interest and passion in the game.

I couldn't finish this article without talking about the Icelandic club Stjarnan that specialises in funny celebrations. They have a huge variety of celebrations that are all on YouTube, I think this is their most well known and probably their best celebration so far.