Antonio Rattin, one of Argentina’s greatest midfielders – and the man who brought about the introduction of red and yellow cards in football – has died aged 89, his former club Boca Juniors have announced.<\/p>\n
Rattin played at the 1962 and 1966 World Cups, but it was his controversial dismissal at the latter tournament which led to an overhaul.<\/p>\n
He spent his entire career with Buenos Aires club Boca Juniors, who said: “With great sorrow, we mourn the passing of Antonio Ubaldo Rattin, an idol and symbol of our institution.<\/p>\n
“We stand with his family and loved ones at this difficult time. Farewell, Rata.”<\/p>\n
He made 382 appearances for Boca between 1956 and 1970, scoring 28 goals and winning four league titles, and reaching the 1963 Copa Libertadores final.<\/p>\n
He represented Argentina from 1959 to 1969 and it was his sending-off in a 1-0 quarter-final loss to England that many outside his country would remember him for. <\/p>\n
He refused to leave the pitch after being dismissed, saying he did not understand German referee Rudolf Kreitlein, who did not speak Spanish.<\/p>\n
On his way off, Rattin crumpled an England corner flag and sat on a red carpet reserved for Queen Elizabeth II in protest against the decision.<\/p>\n
“When I got to the corner, I twisted the English flag and insulted them. Then I went over to the carpet the Queen used to enter the stadium and sat there for about five minutes. It was a very nice red carpet,” Rattin said years later.<\/p>\n
Fifa introduced the yellow and red card system at the next World Cup in 1970 to avoid communication problems between referees and players from different countries.<\/p>\n
After retiring as a player, Rattin had a brief spell as Boca’s coach before moving into politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Antonio Rattin, one of Argentina’s greatest midfielders – and the man who brought about the introduction of red…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-794898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}