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    Who invented the red card?

    English referee Ken Aston. Traffic lights gave him the idea, and cards debuted at the 1970 World Cup.

    1970

    Year yellow and red cards were first used at a World Cup

    A player commits a foul, and the referee pulls a card from his breast pocket and raises it high. Yellow means a caution; red means you’re off. Whatever language you speak, the fans in the stadium and the viewers at home grasp the decision at a glance.

    It feels as if it has always been there, but in more than 150 years of soccer history the system is surprisingly recent. It was born at the end of the 1960s, and it was dreamed up by one English referee.

    A sending-off lost in translation

    Ken Aston (1915–2001) was a schoolteacher who also refereed. At the 1962 World Cup in Chile, he took charge of the brawl-filled Chile versus Italy match that became known as the “Battle of Santiago.” Later he worked on the referees’ committee of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, training officials.

    The turning point came at the 1966 World Cup in England. On July 23, at London’s Wembley Stadium, England played Argentina in the quarter-final. In the 35th minute, the West German referee Rudolf Kreitlein ordered Argentina’s captain, Antonio Rattín, off the field. The trouble was that the referee spoke no Spanish and Rattín spoke no German. Rattín refused to leave, the match stopped for nearly ten minutes, and in the end, it is said, he was escorted off by police.

    That was not the only confusion. England’s Bobby and Jack Charlton had also been cautioned in that match, and the story goes that the brothers found out only when they read the next day’s newspapers. At the time, cautions and dismissals were simply announced out loud by the referee.

    Inspired by a traffic light

    Aston had watched the match, and on the way home he was driving along Kensington High Street in London. At a junction he saw a signal change from amber to red, and the idea struck him. Amber means “take care”; red means “stop.” Colors like these would make sense to players from any country, with no explanation needed.

    When he got home and talked it over, his wife, Hilda, is said to have cut out pieces of yellow and red paper sized to fit in a shirt pocket. This two-card idea was eventually adopted by FIFA.

    Close-up of a traffic signal with its red light lit
    A traffic signal showing red. Aston saw that the meaning of traffic-light colors is understood by people everywhere.Source: Kevin Payravi / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

    The first red came in 1974

    The cards were used for the first time at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Yellow cards were shown there, but not a single player was sent off. The 1950 and 1970 tournaments are the only World Cups with no dismissals at all. In other words, the brand-new red card never got used on its debut stage.

    The first red card in World Cup history came at the next tournament, in West Germany in 1974. On June 14, in West Germany versus Chile in Berlin, the Turkish referee Doğan Babacan showed a red card to Chile’s forward Carlos Caszely. As the first player ever to receive a red card at a World Cup, Caszely is still remembered today.

    A referee in an orange shirt holds a red card high toward a player in a white uniform
    A referee shows a red card to a player during a Leagues Cup match in the United States, August 2025.Source: Keiteay / CC BY 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

    A signal that spread beyond soccer

    The idea borrowed from traffic lights soon spread beyond soccer. Today cards are used in many sports, including rugby, field hockey, handball, water polo and badminton. Some sports even use green, blue, white or black cards, each with its own meaning.

    Aston himself kept insisting that a referee’s decisions should be clear at a glance. He is credited with bringing in brightly colored flags for linesmen and introducing boards to show the numbers of substituted players. In 1997 he was made an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to soccer.

    Solving a problem created by a language barrier with the power of color: the two cards in the referee’s pocket were a simple invention well suited to a sport that the whole world plays together.

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