A Germany star was sent off for pulling an opponent’s hair during their country’s Euro 2025 quarter-final against France on Saturday night.
Defender Kathrin Hendrich was shown a straight red card for the offence, for which she also gave away a penalty in the 13th minute of the match at St. Jakob Park in Basel, Switzerland.
After Hendrich, 33, was dismissed, the resulting spot-kick was converted by Grace Geyoro to give France the lead.
However, Germany struck back just over ten minutes later when Sjoeke Nusken popped up with a leveller against the run of play.
The French then had two goals disallowed for offside either side of the half-time interval as Germany valiantly clung on despite being a player down.
The winner of the match will face world champions Spain, with Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses potentially waiting in the final – should they beat Italy – following their penalty shootout heroics against Sweden on Thursday.
A Germany star was sent off for pulling an opponent’s hair during their country’s Euro 2025 quarter-final against France on Saturday night
Defender Kathrin Hendrich was shown a straight red card for the offence
She was in disbelief at being sent off after the incident was reviewed by VAR
She had to be consoled by her team-mates as she left the field in tears
The incident that saw Hendrich sent off mirrors a similar occurrence of what happened in the Club World Cup final last Sunday – when PSG’s Joao Neves was sent off for pulling the hair of Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella.
That saw referee Alireza Faghani send Neves off after he was deemed to have committed violent conduct.
Reacting to the incident on social media, fans were quick to bemoan Neves’ actions.
One user wrote: ‘Absolute headloss from Joao Neves. Completely unnecessary red card.’
A second chimed in: ‘Joao Neves was shown a straight red for his behaviour! Shameful act on the football pitch!’
Another user stated: ‘Joao Neves red card, Cucurella should never cut his hair’.
It marked a fractured and ugly end to a tournament that has not been short on controversy during its newly-expanded format.
Players and managers have consistently complained about having to play in soaring summer temperatures of well over 30C in the United States.
It comes just days after PSG midfielder Joao Neves was shown a straight red card for doing the same to Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella
He pulled Marc Cucurella’s hair in an off-the-ball incident that left the Chelsea player in a heap
Meanwhile, FIFA has had to deal with the ignominy of seeing some stadiums half-empty during games due to their deployment of dynamic pricing.
That policy – along with the decision to play next year’s World Cup in the North American summer – present big issues for football’s governing body to solve ahead of the World Cup getting under way in 12 months’ time.
