Why Aston Villa's Matty Cash was booked after revealing Ukraine message

Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher has confirmed Aston Villa's Matty Cash received a yellow card for taking his shirt off in the celebrations that followed his goal against Brighton at the weekend.

The right-back opened the scoring in Villa's 2-0 win at the Amex with a stunning strike which arrowed beyond goalkeeper Robert Sanchez.

Cash then chose to send a message of support to his Poland international teammate, Tomasz Kedziora.

The Villa right-back removed his shirt after scoring to reveal the message: "Tomasz Kedziora + family stay strong my bro."

Kedziora plays for Dynamo Kyiv and a number of the Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk players have found themselves stranded in the war-torn cities.

All matches in the Ukrainian Premier League were suspended indefinitely last Thursday after the country declared martial law amid the Russian invasion.

Football fans and pundits were shocked to see Cash booked for the paying tribute to those affected by the conflict in Ukraine and had hoped the yellow card would be overturned due to the severity of the situation.

"Well, referees dislike it because it's a yellow card and sometimes you can receive a second yellow card to send someone off for a technical offence," Gallagher said on Sky Sports.

"Technical offences don't sit well with referees. This one was particularly difficult for the referee because in the morning it was felt that if someone shows an act of solidarity with Ukraine it would be let go, normally political messages wouldn't be allowed, but the feeling was so strong that they wanted to show empathy.

"But with this one, he didn't just lift his shirt up to show the message, he actually took his shirt off, so the referee was in a difficult position because he was