Persistent Fouling

• ✓Persistent offences is a cautionable offence in its own right^{2, 3}
• ✓No specific number of offences constitutes persistent, and the clause says so in its own words^{2, 3}
• ✓No specific pattern either, so the offences need not be against the same opponent or of the same kind^{2, 3}
• ✓Each offence can be careless and unpunishable on its own. It is the repetition that is named^{1, 2, 3}
• ✓The clause requires no deliberate or tactical motive, though a foul that stops a promising attack is separately cautionable^{2, 3, 4, 5}
• ✓A caution for persistent offences counts towards a second caution and therefore a sending-off, like any other^{6, 7}

Persistent offences is one of the cautionable offences in Law 12, and it is the one the Law defines by refusing to define it: the clause carries its own parenthesis reading "no specific number or pattern of offences constitutes 'persistent'". That rules out both of the shortcuts this offence usually attracts. There is no number, so "three fouls and it is a card" is not the Law, and a referee who waits for a third is applying a rule nobody wrote. And there is no pattern, so the offences do not have to be against the same opponent, do not have to be of the same kind, and do not have to be spread evenly through the match. What is left is a judgement about this player in this match, which is what the clause hands to the referee and declines to constrain. Nothing in the clause requires the offences to be deliberate or tactical either. A player who is simply losing every duel and conceding free kick after free kick can be cautioned for persistent offences on the same wording as one who is fouling cynically, because it is the repetition that is named, not the motive. Where the motive is present the caution is usually available twice over, since an offence that interferes with or stops a promising attack is separately unsporting behaviour.^{2, 3, 4, 5}