Overview
- The Premier League announced Friday that its refereeing points of emphasis for 2026-27 will treat hair pulling on a force-and-intent basis rather than as automatic violent conduct.
- Under the new guidance a red card will be shown only for a clear, deliberate hair pull with excessive force or brutality while lesser or accidental contact can be cautioned with a yellow card.
- VAR will keep a high threshold for intervention so on-field decisions stand unless clearly wrong and it may review incidents where a second yellow leads to a red but cannot recommend a booking that the referee did not originally give.
- Referees have also been told to clamp down on holding at set-pieces and to protect goalkeepers by penalising non-footballing actions that materially affect an attacker or keeper.
- The change follows a season in which several players served three-match bans after VAR-reviewed hair-pull red cards and it is aimed at reducing contentious dismissals while preserving red cards for genuinely violent acts.