Two red cards for hair-pulling as Antigua beat Anguilla 5-0
Antigua and Barbuda beat Anguilla 5-0 in the Concacaf Nations League, then lost two men for pulling the same player's hair. The tie was played at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. Both red cards involved Anguilla forward Aedan Scipio.
Scipio is 36. His dreadlocks reach his ankles. He wears a band around his waist to keep the hair tied to his body while he plays, as reported by BBC Sport. He plays up front for Anguilla, one of the smallest teams in world football.
He came off the bench in the 69th minute with Anguilla already trailing 5-0. Three minutes later, Antigua and Barbuda player Keon Greene was shown a straight red card, an instant dismissal with no prior warning, for tugging Scipio's dreadlocks. Concacaf's official match log confirms the sequence, recording Scipio replacing C. Carty and K. Greene sent off in the same passage of play Concacaf.
Antigua finished the game with nine men. In added time, Shalon Knight pulled Scipio's dreadlocks from behind. The pull took Scipio off his feet. The referee reached for red again.
The result itself was no shock. Anguilla are ranked 210th in FIFA's international rankings. Only San Marino sit below them. The Concacaf Nations League is the regional competition for national teams across North America, Central America and the Caribbean, and Antigua's League C win was confirmed in the official round-up.
What makes this stand out is how quickly it unfolded. Scipio was on the pitch for barely 25 minutes. He came on to chase a lost game and spent much of his cameo trying to keep his hair out of opponents' hands. Twice, they reached for the one thing they had to leave alone, and twice the referee had no choice.
