When Lloyd Kelly saw referee Joao Pinheiro heading for the pitchside monitor during Juventus’ Champions League exit against Galatasaray, he must have had some hope.
The English defender had just been sent off early in the second half after receiving his second yellow card of the evening.
Kelly might well have wondered when Pinheiro was sent to the screen by video assistant referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski whether his second booking was about to be overturned.
Instead, Kelly’s yellow card was upgraded to a straight red, to the disgust of the former Bournemouth and Newcastle United defender.
You could argue the strange moment had little bearing on the game. Kelly had been sent off anyway, so whether it was a straight red or not, his side were still down to 10 players.
In the end, they still managed to overturn a 5-2 deficit from the first leg in Turkey, leading the second leg 3-0 after 90 minutes, only to concede twice in extra time as Galatasaray progressed to the last 16 as 7-5 winners on aggregate.
But the dismissal of the 27-year-old defender was still one of the most controversial moments of a highly entertaining set of play-off games.
Here, The Athletic breaks down what happened.
When the controversy happened, Kelly was already on a yellow card, having been cautioned earlier in the game for clattering into Galatasaray’s Gabriel Sara. There was nothing contentious about that first booking.
So when Kelly clashed with Baris Yilmaz while competing for a high ball, he was already walking a tightrope.
When referee Pinheiro showed him another yellow card, Kelly was in trouble.
Kwiatkowski then took over when he decided to review the decision. Kelly might have been optimistic, but if he were fully on top of the VAR procedure, he would have known that the review was more likely to spell more bad news.
The protocols do not allow the video assistant to get involved to overturn yellow cards, even if they are second bookings that lead to a dismissal.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB), which sets the laws of the worldwide game, is expected to change that situation soon, allowing VARs to intervene if they feel a second yellow card was wrongly awarded.
But for now, yellow cards are none of VARs’ business.
In this case, though, when Kelly landed from his jump, his foot came down on Yilmaz’s Achilles tendon and Kwiatkowski decided that his actions could endanger the safety of his opponent — an offence that warrants a straight red card instead of a yellow.
So the VAR decided to send his on-field colleague to the screen with a view to upgrading Kelly’s punishment.
It is at this point that a loophole in the regulations could have saved the Englishman from a red card. While the VAR cannot recommend the withdrawal of a yellow card, once the referee is at the screen for any reason, he is free to make whatever decision he deems correct.
So had Pinheiro decided that Kelly had landed on Yilmaz’s foot by accident — a view taken by many former players and pundits who commented on the incident later — he could have chosen to reverse his earlier decision and allow the defender to stay on the field.
Kelly certainly did not seem to know where Yilmaz’s leg was as he tried to head the ball, and he even appeared to be pushed off balance by the Galatasaray player while in mid-air, making it even harder for him to control where his feet came down.
But instead, the referee agreed with his colleague in the video room and upgraded Kelly’s second yellow card to a red. It is rare, but not unheard of, for referees sent to the screen to disagree with the judgement of a VAR.
The defender was clearly unimpressed with the decision, as his reaction showed, but the outcome was the same as it would have been without VAR — he was sent off and his side were a player short.
The red card means Kelly faces a European suspension, but with Juventus now out of Europe, the ban will roll over until the next time a club Kelly is registered with has a European fixture.
Whether the ban is for one or two games will depend whether the referee reports the red card was for “rough play”, which carries a one-game tariff, or the more serious “serious rough play”, which brings a two-game ban.
Kelly and Juventus have the right to appeal. If the red card is overturned, the UEFA disciplinary panel would have the power to remove all punishment or reinstate the initial yellow card, which would lead to a one-match ban for a red card for two bookable offences.