Five of the Fiercest Fouls in Football History.

Manchester United v Manchester City, Old Trafford, 21 April 2001

Manchester United captain Roy Keane committed a knee-high tackle on Manchester City midfielder Alf-Inge Haaland in the 84th minute of the Manchester derby on 21 April 2001 at Old Trafford, with referee David Elleray showing a straight red card on the spot. The Football Association issued a standard three-match ban and a £5,000 fine for the offence at the time. The incident escalated more than two years later when Keane's autobiography, ghost-written with Eamon Dunphy and published in August 2002, contained a passage in which Keane appeared to acknowledge that the tackle had been deliberate retribution for an earlier confrontation between the two players during a Leeds United versus Manchester United fixture in September 1997, in which Keane had ruptured his cruciate ligament while attempting to foul Haaland. The FA reopened the case on the basis of the published account, charged Keane with bringing the game into disrepute, and in October 2002 imposed a further five-match ban and a £150,000 fine — at the time one of the largest individual disciplinary fines in English football history. Haaland did not play another full Premier League match after the derby, although the precise causal link between the tackle and his eventual retirement was disputed in subsequent commentary; he had pre-existing knee problems and was already playing through pain at the time of the incident. In Keane's later book The Second Half (Roddy Doyle, 2014), the player offered a more nuanced account of the original passages but did not retract the central admission of intent.

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Crystal Palace v Manchester United, 25 January 1995

Manchester United forward Eric Cantona was sent off in the 49th minute of a Premier League fixture at Selhurst Park on 25 January 1995 after kicking out at Crystal Palace defender Richard Shaw. As Cantona walked toward the tunnel along the touchline, a Crystal Palace supporter — later identified as Matthew Simmons — moved forward from the front of the stand and shouted abuse at the player. Cantona launched a leaping two-footed kick over the perimeter advertising hoardings into Simmons' chest, followed by several thrown punches before stewards and Manchester United players intervened. The Football Association handed Cantona a nine-month ban from all football, the longest individual suspension imposed on a Premier League player at that time; Manchester United supplemented the FA ban with an internal four-month suspension and a substantial fine. Cantona was initially sentenced to two weeks in prison by Croydon Magistrates' Court for common assault, with the sentence reduced on appeal to 120 hours of community service, served at a children's coaching programme. Simmons was charged separately with threatening behaviour and convicted. The incident is the most-replayed single moment of Cantona's career and is referenced in nearly every academic study of footballer-supporter interaction in the post-Hillsborough era; it directly contributed to the tightening of stadium-perimeter security at Premier League grounds in the late 1990s.

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Manchester City v Portsmouth, 23 August 2006

Manchester City defender Ben Thatcher struck Portsmouth midfielder Pedro Mendes in the face with a raised elbow during a Premier League fixture at the City of Manchester Stadium on 23 August 2006, the contact knocking Mendes unconscious against the perimeter advertising boards. Mendes suffered a seizure on the pitch, was given oxygen and removed by stretcher, and was treated in hospital that evening for concussion and facial injuries; he later disclosed that he experienced ongoing headaches for several months. Referee Dermot Gallagher gave Thatcher only a yellow card on the field of play, but the Football Association — using the retrospective video-evidence powers introduced in 2002 — charged Thatcher with violent conduct and imposed an eight-match ban (six matches plus the two remaining from a previous suspension), among the longest non-Cantona individual suspensions in early 21st-century Premier League discipline. Manchester City supplemented the FA ban with an additional six-week internal suspension and ordered Thatcher to attend personal counselling. The incident is now used as a teaching case in FA referee training because of the gap between the on-field punishment (a yellow card) and the violent reality captured on broadcast footage; it accelerated the formal use of retrospective video review for serious foul play that the FA had introduced four years earlier.

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Netherlands v Spain, Soccer City, Johannesburg, 11 July 2010

Netherlands midfielder Nigel de Jong landed a studs-up kick into the chest of Spain midfielder Xabi Alonso in the 28th minute of the FIFA World Cup final on 11 July 2010 at Soccer City, Johannesburg, with English referee Howard Webb showing only a yellow card. The challenge was one of fourteen yellow cards issued by Webb across the match — the highest single-match total in any World Cup final to that point — alongside the second yellow and red card to Netherlands defender John Heitinga in extra time. The match itself was decided by Andrés Iniesta's 116th-minute goal for Spain, the country's first World Cup title. Webb later acknowledged in his 2016 autobiography The Man in the Middle and in subsequent interviews that he should have shown a straight red card for de Jong's challenge and that the decision to keep him on the pitch had affected the rhythm of the entire match. FIFA did not impose any retrospective discipline because the offence had been seen and dealt with on the field, but the incident is a recurring reference point in academic discussion of refereeing tolerance in showpiece finals — a phenomenon sometimes called the "big match leniency" effect — and was directly cited in the 2016 IFAB review that updated the laws of the game to clarify the distinction between reckless and serious foul play.

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West Germany v France, Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán, Seville, 8 July 1982

West Germany goalkeeper Harald Schumacher collided at full speed with onrushing France substitute Patrick Battiston in the 57th minute of the FIFA World Cup semi-final on 8 July 1982 at the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán in Seville, with Battiston having reached a through-ball moments earlier and lobbed it past Schumacher toward goal. Schumacher's hip and forearm struck Battiston in the head and chest at high speed; Battiston was knocked unconscious immediately, lost three teeth, suffered cracked vertebrae, and was given oxygen on the pitch before being stretchered off. Dutch referee Charles Corver awarded a goal kick, with no foul, no card and no further sanction. France, leading 1-0 at the time, eventually drew 3-3 over 120 minutes and lost on the first penalty shoot-out in World Cup history; West Germany progressed to the final, where they lost to Italy. The incident is widely regarded as the most infamous unpunished foul in any FIFA World Cup match, and it directly contributed to the law-of-the-game amendments of the late 1980s and 1990s strengthening protection of goalkeepers and outfield players from each other in aerial and high-speed collisions. Battiston eventually recovered and resumed his playing career; Schumacher's public reputation in France was permanently affected, and the two players publicly reconciled in a televised meeting two years later.

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