Photo: flickr/Ingy The Wingy
When you're a soccer player, verbally abusing the referee is probably not the best idea--in fact, according to the soccer rulebook, it's an automatic red card. But is this always the outcome in a real game? Here, a group of researchers from Austria surveyed soccer referees to find out whether they would actually give red card after being cursed at. The subjects took a survey that included a list of 28 swear words, and they were asked how they would respond if they were called these names during a real game. Turns out that the type of insult was a major determinant of the response: "sexually inclined words or phrases" were more likely to earn a red card than "terms insulting one's appearance." With the Superbowl coming up, we wonder whether these results are applicable to other sports as well?
May I curse a referee? Swear ...
