Referees are judging two things at once: was there a foul, and if there was, how serious was it? A challenge can be a simple foul, a yellow-card offence, or a red-card offence depending on the force, danger, and effect on the opponent.
Charges, jumps, kicks, pushes, strikes, tackles, trips, and attempts at several of those actions produce a direct free kick when committed against an opponent in a careless, reckless, or excessively forceful way. Holding, deliberate handball, spitting, biting, and impeding with contact are also direct-free-kick offences. Dangerous play without contact, impeding without contact, offside, and several technical goalkeeper offences instead lead to an indirect free kick. If a defending player commits a direct-free-kick offence inside their own penalty area while the ball is in play, the restart is a penalty kick.
Careless means a lack of attention or precaution and needs a foul but no disciplinary card by itself. Reckless means disregard for the danger or consequences to an opponent and requires a caution. Excessive force means the player exceeds necessary force or endangers an opponent's safety and requires a sending-off for serious foul play when challenging for the ball. Speed, point and mode of contact, studs, control, intensity, and the opponent's vulnerability all contribute. Winning or touching the ball does not cancel a challenge that remains reckless or dangerously forceful.
Referees separate the reason for stopping play from the disciplinary sanction. A reckless tackle is a direct free kick plus a yellow card; dissent after a careless foul adds a caution but does not move the kick to where the dissent occurred while the ball is already dead. Violent conduct can occur away from a challenge for the ball and can be punished even during a stoppage, with the restart determined by whether the ball was in play and who was involved. A player can also receive two cautions from the same sequence when the Laws require distinct offences.
The referee may apply advantage when the non-offending team receives a more promising immediate benefit than the free kick. A caution for stopping a promising attack is not shown when advantage is successfully played. Under the 2026/27 Laws, if advantage follows a DOGSO offence and the attacking team scores as a result, there is no disciplinary sanction for that DOGSO. If the expected benefit does not develop within a few seconds, the referee can return to the original offence, but cannot wait through an unrelated new phase and then revive it.
That can matter, but it does not automatically save the player. If the challenge is still dangerous, late, or out of control, a foul and card can still follow even when the ball is touched first.