Spartak Moscow’s Emmanuel Emenike Shown Bizarre Straight Red For ‘Offensive’ Goal Celebration (Video)

By Chris Wright

In which Spartak Moscow forward Emmanuel Emenike receives a straight red card after celebrating his goal in Spartak’s 3-2 win over Zenit St Petersburg yesterday in front of his own fans with an ‘arm tapping’ celebration…

Eh? Are we missing something here? Is that gesture morbidly offensive in Russia?

Apparently the referee has since indicated that he interpreted Emenike’s arm-tap as an abusive ‘up yours’ gesture directed toward the Zenit bench.

Again, eh?

Spartak have, unsurprisingly, vowed to appeal the decision.

(Via Pies’ favourite footballing Russophile @jamesappell)

Posted in FAIL, Videos

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16 Comments

  1. Tim says:

    it does look like he might have bumped into the ref..but still

  2. Tim says:

    at 0.17

  3. Ivan says:

    Epic fail. If you know russian you can hear that commentators are agree with ref. Are they F**ing kidding mе? They say that it is a popular bad gesture. Facepalm.

  4. Kevin says:

    @tim

    When i say that, I thought it was actually the ref trying to grab Eminike’s arm to get him to stop.

  5. Les says:

    Gotta love the stewards applauding in the background, “wonderful decision ref, now what was that for?”

  6. Flemming Dørken says:

    I thought it might be a taking drugs-kind of gesture…

  7. Anitachka says:

    Yeh, Im russian and my husbands brother is a serious Spartak fan, the only thing that comes to my mind is that it was interpreted as a drug taking reference. Even so, far stretch for me, seems obvious that although it can have that meaning, thats not what he was going for.

  8. Jerry-Cristian says:

    After this match was planned the awarding ceremony of players of Zenit St. Petersburg for the first place in the championship of Russia. I think that the judge before the match got a job to ensure the victory of the Zenith. This is not surprising, because it is well known that the fans of Zenit St. Petersburg are the head of the Russian football Union Fursenko, sports Minister Mutko and the head of the richest Russian company Gazprom Miller. So when Emenike equalise the score in the game, the judge tried to do something to help the Zenit win. In addition, Zenit in the opinion of many people is racist club, because in this club have never played dark-skinned players. “In the colors of the Zenith no black” – often say the fans of Zenit St. Petersburg. Perhaps this is why Emenike has got the red card.

  9. Matt says:

    Krokodil reference?

  10. Shane says:

    Drugs mayhaps?

  11. pray4muamba says:

    is that match fixing i smell?

  12. Atssip says:

    No i cant believe it, this is so hilarious, this referee doesn’t know this classical celebration : Samuel Eto’o during final of Champions League 2009…

    Strange I agree, about drug and all, so disgusting …

  13. Toz says:

    The Russians are used to getting the up yours gesture. In the 1980 Olympics, a Pole gave the Soviet crowd that gesture after they booed him (he ended up winning the Gold).

  14. Anonymous says:

    A drug taking gesture?

    I know athletes have a history of taking banned substances but heroin is not exactly what you would call performance enhancing.

    Whatever meaning he intended, it was totally innocuous and it was a ludicrous decision to red card him.

    The referee should be given a thorough evaluation.

  15. Alex says:

    долбоебство, извиняюсь за выражение

  16. Maksim, rus says:

    I write through the translator)) This is a mess… Today Russian football authorities have decided that nothing illegal Emenike not shown… But the red cards are not abolished and he would miss the last match of the season… I’m tired of this political pressure on the greatest football club in Russia… Zenith is the shit (sorry)

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