Anderlecht’s Steve Defour played at Standard for five years before leaving in 2011.
In an Anderlect v/s Standard away game he got a pretty hard time from the home side fans who had not forgiven him for abandoning the club 5 years ago.They heckled and booed him unceasingly.
The unfurling of a banner saying “red or dead” with graphic image in very poor taste proved to be the final straw.
He belted the ball in the general direction of the crowd and the ref – taking a cue from the banner perhaps – gave him a red card.
A yellow card should surely been have been enough to make him accept the whole booing thing more philosophically. Surely a case where the referee has been subconsciously misled into giving out the wrong card because he read the word red while he was reaching for his card.
Maybe we need to consult Graham Poll on this. He was very good at giving out yellow cards -giving away three on one memorable occasion before finally going for red.
Video of the incident.