JULES BREACH: Let players celebrate goals without being booked... no-one wants to see the passion and spontaneity sucked out of the game

People love football for the entertainment, drama and passion. That inability to control your emotions when your team scores is what makes it the best sport in the world.

Imagine what the feeling must be like for a player to slot away that winning goal, or for a manager to watch their side snatch a victory late on.

It’s surprising we don’t see them completely lose it with excitement more often than we do, but there’s something very human about it when it does happen. In the space of two weeks, Hugo Ekitike and Enzo Maresca were sent off after celebrating their respective team’s late winners.

It reopened the debate about why players are booked for taking their shirts off when celebrating, and what is considered an over-the-top celebration.

For Ekitike, he received a second yellow after pulling his shirt off to celebrate the goal that sent Liverpool through in the League Cup.

He was widely criticised for the act, which resulted in a one-match suspension early on in his Reds career. In that particular moment, it was considered as an unnecessary over-celebration.

In Maresca’s case, he was shown a second yellow after wildly celebrating Estevao’s dramatic last-gasp winner over the Premier League champions, sprinting down the touchline, Jose Mourinho style, to jump on his players by the corner flag.

The Chelsea boss received a one-match touchline ban and an £8,000 fine. He later admitted it was an instinctive reaction and that the red card was worth it.

While the two situations are quite different, the common theme is that both men were punished for showing their emotions.

Now, I’m not suggesting there shouldn’t be any rules – fan and player safety is paramount – but it does sometimes feel a shame to see yellow cards being shown for celebrations that are caught up in a moment of joy, simply because referees have to stick to the rules in black and white.

The laws say that players and managers can celebrate goals, but it must not be excessive or cause significant time wasting. Not being able to remove a shirt in celebration is designed to prevent players from provoking the opposition and their fans, the display of political messages, and players covering the club’s sponsors.

By the law, referees have to show cards – it’s their job. But you can also imagine in some circumstances, they probably feel reluctant, especially knowing it will result in a suspension.

There are so many reasons players can get booked nowadays, from taking free-kicks too quickly to delaying the restart, but a more common-sense approach to bookings after scoring would be widely welcomed.

Many players and managers have already expressed that VAR has stalled or toned down celebrations at times, so in the moments they do completely lose it, fans love it even more, as it feels so raw and genuine.

Who doesn’t want to see their team in seventh heaven, delirious in celebration? Probably just the opposition, but then isn’t that the whole point?

There have been some bookings that fall under the questionable category when it comes to celebrations. Vincent Aboubakar was sent off after scoring a stoppage-time winner for Cameroon against Brazil at the 2022 World Cup – one of the great nights in his country’s history.

Sergio Aguero was booked after scoring that goal to seal the Premier League title for Manchester City in 2012, as if it mattered by that point. Last season, perhaps more humorously, Iliman Ndiaye was booked for imitating a seagull after scoring in Everton’s win at Brighton.

The point is, scoring meaningful goals is the best part of the game. In those moments that matter the most, players and managers are only human and you understand why emotions get the better of them, or why they would want to show personality, so it’s a shame to see them punished for it.

On the flip side, you could argue that bookings clearly don’t stop those moments of euphoria, so such exuberant celebrations do tend to be limited to the truly iconic moments, which could be viewed as a good thing.

However, no-one wants to see the passion and spontaneity sucked away by the fear of a booking. Fans want to watch their heroes lose it emotionally, the same way they do – after all, it’s those moments that make football the game we love.